Jeremy Fears Jr, Michigan State basketball feast on Bruins from deep
· Yahoo Sports
EAST LANSING – On Sunday night, Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo bought pizza for UCLA coach Mick Cronin, in town with his Bruins for the second end of a Michigan double-dip.
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Izzo might own Cronin a few more meals after the No. 15 Spartans feasted on the Bruins for much of the first half in an 82-59 victory at Breslin Center on Tuesday, Feb. 17. MSU connected on eight of 14 3-point tries in the first half alone to roll up a 20-point lead after 20 minutes.
Jeremy Fears Jr. and Coen Carr led the Spartans with 16 points apiece, Fears added 10 assists, Jordan Scott added 11 points, and Carson Cooper had 12 points and seven rebounds.
Former Spartan Xavier Booker, making his return to East Lansing, finished with two points and two rebounds.
In the first half, MSU also outrebounded UCLA, 21-9, rolled up an 8-0 edge on the fastbreak and held the Bruins to just 32.1% shooting from the field over teh.
Big Ten standings
With the win, the Spartans (21-5, 11-4 Big Ten) kept pace with conference-leading Michigan, which remained 3½ games up on the Spartans with its own win Tuesday. The Spartans moved into a tie, however, with Purdue for fourth place in the conference; the top four teams receive a triple-bye in next month’s Big Ten Tournament.
What’s next for Michigan State basketball
The Spartans remain at home for a Breslin matinee with Ohio State on Sunday (1 p.m., CBS). The Buckeyes hosted Wisconsin on Tuesday night in a game that promised to muddy the middle of the Big Ten even further.
Bear-ly there in the first
The Bruins, who entered Tuesday 9-5 in league play, are one of those squads in the middle, and six minutes in, they looked like they might steal a win in the second half of their Midwest trip, leading 9-7 with 15:43 left in the first half. And then Jaxon Kohler tied it up with a layup. And then added a 3-pointer on the fast break. And Fears hit a 3 and, well, the Spartans were off to the races. That was the start of a 33-7 run that saw UCLA go scoreless for more than eight minutes in the middle of the half.
Fears led the way over the first 20 minutes, in which the Spartans led 43-23, with 11 points and five assists while Carson Cooper added nine points and seven rebounds and Jeremy Scott, making his fourth straight start, opened with nine points on three 3-point tries.
This story will be updated.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jeremy Fears Jr, Michigan State basketball feast on Bruins from deep