Men's Basketball Defeats Detroit in Season Opener, 80-70

Nov 12, 2001

By LARRY LAGE
AP Sports Writer

EAST LANSING, Mich. - New faces. Same formula.

Aloysius Anagonye, Marcus Taylor and Adam Wolfe scored 14 points each and No. 15 Michigan State beat Detroit 80-70 in the Preseason NIT on Monday night to extend the nation's longest home winning streak to 45 games.

The Spartans advanced to the Final Four the past three seasons and won a fourth straight Big Ten title thanks to rebounding, defense and balanced scoring. But they lost seven players from last season, a year after losing three.

The country's top rebounding team the past two years outrebounded the Titans 43-32, held them to 43.3 percent shooting and had seven players score eight points or more.

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo seems inspired to lead a team with eight recruited scholarship players, including three freshmen and no seniors.

"There's some personal challenges and excitement to have an opportunity to coach such a young team," Izzo said. "I don't want to make excuses for a young team, but we've lost a ton and we know it.

"As I told our players before they took the floor, 'This is an opportunity and everybody gets one in life and what you do with it is up to you.' This is a golden opportunity because I'm going to have freshmen playing 25 minutes a game and I'm going to have veterans that haven't done much here, that are going to have an opportunity to step up."

The Spartans advanced to the quarterfinals of the 16-team tournament and will play No. 25 Oklahoma on Wednesday at home. The Sooners beat Central Connecticut State 66-44 on Monday.

Three freshmen helped Michigan State's leading scorers, who must become go-to players after playing lesser roles last season. Chris Hill scored 10 points, Kelvin Torbert had nine and Alan Anderson added eight.

"I couldn't ask for a better opportunity," Hill said. "As a freshman, I'm being asked to contribute a lot to a big-time program. I know I'm going to have some ups and downs, but I hope I can have a lot of nights like this."

Greg Grays led the Titans with 24 points, while Terrell Riggs added 21.

"Those guys just flat-out outhustled us," Riggs said.

Michigan State won its 25th consecutive season opener and snapped a three-game losing streak to Detroit. The teams met for the first time since 1997.

The Spartans never trailed, but Detroit refused to be routed as so many other visitors to the Breslin Center have been. Michigan State won its previous 44 home games by an average of 21.7 points with just six decided by fewer than 10 points.

The Spartans used two spurts to take a 42-30 halftime lead.

Grays scored 11 straight points to cut the Titans' deficit to 54-50 midway through the second half.

The Spartans responded with an 18-6 run - starting with consecutive 3-pointers by Hill and ending with six straight points from Torbert - to build a 72-56 lead with 6:12 left.

Detroit couldn't get closer than eight points.

"I think we answered some questions against a ranked team with a long winning streak at home," Detroit coach Perry Watson said.

The Spartans graduated five seniors and saw two underclassmen, Jason Richardson and Zach Randolph, enter the NBA draft and become first-round picks.

Detroit returned four starters from a team that advanced to the NIT semifinals, but lost Rashad Phillips, the school's all-time leading scorer.