Michigan State reaches 16th Sweet 16 under Tom Izzo with 71-63 March Madness win over New Mexico

CLEVELAND — Jaden Akins scored 16 points, including a 3-pointer that put Michigan State ahead to stay, and coach Tom Izzo took the Spartans to the Sweet 16 for the 16th time with a 71-63 victory over New Mexico on Sunday night.

Izzo has 58 wins in the NCAA Tournament, tied for fourth in a coaching career. The 70-year-old Hall of Famer has taken the Spartans to March Madness 27 times.

Four of those victories have come against the Pitino family. Izzo has won both of his matchups against New Mexico coach Richard Pitino and is 2-1 against his father, Rick. The elder Pitino, whose St. John’s squad was eliminated on Saturday by John Calipari and Arkansas, flew to Cleveland and had a front-row seat opposite the Lobos’ bench.

Tre Holloman added 14 points for second-seeded Michigan State (29-6), which will face Mississippi in a South Region semifinal in Atlanta on Friday night. The sixth-seeded Rebels beat Iowa State to advance to the tournament’s second weekend for the first time since 2001.

“The first half of that game, that was as good of a barrage as we’ve had hit us. It wasn’t that we were down a lot, but it just seemed like we weren’t guarding, and they were making shots,” Izzo said. “I thought we got our break going when we got our defense going, and we rebounded the ball pretty well.”

Nelly Junior Joseph scored 16 points and Mustapha Amzil and Donovan Dent added 14 apiece for No. 10 seed New Mexico (27-8). The Lobos are 0-7 in second-round games since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

“They’re big, they’re strong, they’re athletic. They had some blocked shots from behind that I hadn’t seen all year. Certainly, there’s another level of athleticism that we’re not used to,” Pitino said about Michigan State. “We knew they’d make us earn it. I was wishing we could get to the foul line a little bit more. We did not. Making five free throws versus a very, very physical team is hard.”

The Spartans trailed 31-29 at halftime, but opened the second half with six straight points. A pair of free throws by Coen Carr 90 seconds into the second half gave them their first lead.

A layup by Dent tied the game at 51-all with 7:39 remaining. Michigan State then took control with seven straight points. The run started with a 3-pointer by Akins as the shot clock was winding down, with New Mexico’s Tru Washington guarding him.

“I feel like it was pretty big just giving us the lead. It gave us some momentum. I haven’t been shooting good, so it just felt good to be efficient today,” said Akins, who was 7 of 11 from the field after going 4 for 15 in Friday night’s first-round win over Bryant.

New Mexico never trailed in the first half and was up 29-20 after Anzil’s second 3-pointer of the first half.

Michigan State responded with an 8-0 run, including a dunk by Akins.

Turning point

Joseph picked up his fourth foul with 8:35 remaining. He came back in with 3:50 left, but fouled out with 2:12 remaining.

Michigan State outscored the Lobos 14-7 in the nearly five minutes Joseph was on the bench.

“It’s really disappointing because we feel like we can beat them because we were beating them in the first half. We know we can beat them. We know we are better than them so it’s really disappointing to lose to a team we are way better than,” said Joseph, who also had seven rebounds.

Key stat

New Mexico, which came into the game averaging 23 trips to the foul line per game, was only 5 of 10 on free throws.

Michigan State was 19 of 28, including 13 of 18 in the second half.

Moving on up

Izzo tied retired Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim’s NCAA Tournament win total. Ahead of Izzo are Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (101), Roy Williams (79 at Kansas and North Carolina) and the late Dean Smith (65 at North Carolina).

“Anytime you can accomplish something with your team and your coaches that some of the most respected guys in college basketball have achieved, I guess it’s a privilege and an honor,” Izzo said. “I just never see any kind of banners hanging for those kinds of things, and I’m not kind of a banner guy. So until that happens, I’ll enjoy it, but I won’t do cartwheels over it.”

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Michigan State reaches 16th Sweet 16 under Tom Izzo with 71-63 March Madness win over New Mexico

Turning point

Key stat

Moving on up

Topics

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