Michigan State basketball stumbles in first stop on LA trip, falls to USC, 70-64

Posted by author February 1, 2025 Basketball

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LOS ANGELES — History will have to wait.

With a chance for Tom Izzo to tie the record for most Big Ten victories by a coach, No. 7 Michigan State basketball stumbled from the opening tip and dug itself too deep a hole to come back Saturday at USC.

The Spartans fell behind by as many as 15 points in the first half, and the Trojans never trailed en route to a 70-64 victory at Galen Center.

That snapped a 13-game win streak and handed the first road and conference loss of the season to MSU (18-3, 9-1 Big Ten). And it kept Izzo one win shy of tying Bob Knight for the most conference victories by a coach in league history.

“We definitely wanted it for him,” redshirt freshman point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said. “I think the start really hurt us, and I’d say that’s on me, being a point guard and trying to lead the team and take control. And we were never able to get back ahead and just keep crawling.”

USC (13-8, 5-5) took the Spartans out of their transition game while simultaneously punching them in the mouth from both the inside and outside. The Trojans got in front with an early scoring advantage in the paint while draining seven 3-pointers, and MSU also gave up 10 offensive rebounds and 13 second-chance points that proved costly in falling behind.

Fears had 12 points and six assists while not committing a turnover, but he shot just 3-for-7 and went 5-for-8 at the free-throw line. Jaden Akins had 11 points and Coen Carr scored nine, while Jase Richardson added eight. All 10 MSU players scored or grabbed a rebound, but the balance wasn’t enough against depth-challenged USC.

The Spartans committed 13 turnovers that led to 12 points for the Trojans. They also made just 11 of 19 free-throw attempts, the first bad shooting game at the line for a team that arrived averaging the nation’s third-best rate (82.1%). And despite entering the game leading the nation in fastbreak points per game at 18.5, MSU managed just nine as USC cut off their transition attack.

“We beat ourselves. We have nobody blame it on but ourselves,” said Carr, who had three turnovers with three assists. “Everybody kind of knew that. But also, we need to keep our heads up. … We still got a job to do, to play another game, so we just gotta focus on that and move on.”

Desmond Claude had 19 points, Wesley Yates III scored 15 and Chibuzo Agbo added 12 for the Trojans (12-8, 4-5), who in their first season in the Big Ten had lost four of their first five league games at home going into Saturday.

Tie denied

More than 2,000 miles from East Lansing, the Spartans couldn’t have felt more at home than they did Saturday afternoon. It was a decidedly audible and visible green and white-heavy crowd — including legend Magic Johnson —for the first major MSU sporting event in Los Angeles since the Rose Bowl win after the 2013 football season.

They came with the hope of seeing Izzo tie Knight’s Big Ten win record of 353. They got loud, chanting “Defense!” and “Go Green! Go White!” at every chance. They got louder with every chance to boo the refs.

They left deflated. And Izzo — who turned 70 on Thursday — left stuck on 352 league victories and 725 wins overall as USC tied the all-time series 4-4 by capturing the first conference matchup.

“I have not talked about that at all up until two days ago, when people were asking (players) and they brought it up to me. It was one of the things that at our breakfast (Saturday) morning. I told them that, ‘This is your team,’ ” Izzo said. “I’ve had a million guys that have helped me get to the number of wins we’ve gotten. And all I want is, I want them to put their mark on something. I think winning 13 in a row was a little bit of a mark, not losing a game in December and January. Every team should leave with something that they can hang their hat on. If I’m fortunate enough to do that, this team will have that along with it.

“But I don’t think that was any pressure. Pressure doesn’t make you play like we played today.”

The Big Ten still has not had an unbeaten Big Ten champion since Knight and Indiana in 1975-76 went 32-0 overall (the last perfect national championship season) and 18-0 in the league.

The next chance for Izzo to tie Knight comes with a crosstown visit Tuesday to historic Pauley Pavilion, where the Spartans will face UCLA (16-6, 7-4). That 10 p.m. tipoff will be MSU’s third straight game solely streamed on NBC’s Peacock service.

“We just gotta realize the things that we did wrong and accept it, but not let it linger over into our next games,” Akins said. “It’s just kind of learn from this game and move on from there.”

Should MSU beat the suddenly surging Bruins and give Izzo the tie, he could break Knight’s record at home next Saturday against No. 18 Oregon. The Spartans then host Indiana on Feb. 11.

West Coast woes

USC staggered MSU from the start by crashing the glass and keeping the Spartans from getting to it, all while attacking the interior of Izzo’s defense. The Trojans jumped out to a 22-7 lead a little over 7 minutes into the game, with Claude and Agbo combining for 13 of those.

“We kind of beat our beat ourselves up tonight,” Richardson said. “The little things that we didn’t do hurt us. It caused big runs for them.”

MSU chipped away, including a strong stretch from Frankie Fidler that included a block on defense and a three-point play after getting out in transition. After back-to-back driving layups by Coen Carr cut it to six, USC leading scorer Claude went down with an apparent knee injury. He would return after five minutes, which was enough of an absence for the Spartans to wiggle back into it.

Tre Holloman’s 3-pointer off a Carr drive-and-kick cut the Trojans’ lead to three with 4:39 before halftime, but the Spartans couldn’t get closer and went into the break trailing, 35-32.

That trend continued in the second half, with USC countering every run MSU would make. The Trojans scored the first five points after intermission, but the Spartans countered with a 7-2 answer that included a Fears 3-pointer. He added a steal and a dunk, but USC got four straight points from Wesley Yates III, including a 3-pointer to extend its lead back to eight. It swelled again to 10 on triples from Saint Thomas and Yates with 13:23 to play.

“We understand the only way for us to win is to be ultra-focused,” first-year USC coach Eric Musselman said. “We may be out talented at times, there may be deeper benches that we’re playing. Just play for 40 minutes and see where it comes out.”

MSU again pulled back with 55-52 on a 7-0 run over the next 2½ minutes, with Akins hitting a layup and a 3-pointer in that stretch. But the Spartans could get no closer as points and possessions started evaporating as the defenses ratcheted up.

Fears pulled MSU back within five with 1:36 after making three of four free throws. But Akins committed a shot-clock violation with 39.3 seconds to play, Yates threw down a breakaway dunk after a full-court inbound pass, and Carr stepped out of bounds to end MSU’s final hope of giving Izzo a belated birthday gift of a record-tying win.

“I’ve been waiting to see how we would respond under some adversity,” Izzo said. “And today we didn’t respond very well. So we’ll have to fix that quickly, since we have another game coming up.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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