MSU misses buzzer beater, loses to Georgian national team
The basketball portion of Michigan State basketball’s 12-day trip to Italy is finished, and the four-game summary reads as such: one 44-blowout win over a club team, lopsided losses to loaded Russian and Italian national teams, then Sunday’s 71-70 loss to the Georgian national team in Trieste.
And it can be capped with this quote from MSU coach Tom Izzo: “This trip was as good as anything I’ve done in my 20 years.”
The Spartans learned a few things about themselves playing against teams with long-term professionals, and on Sunday they nearly stole a win when senior guard Bryn Forbes just missed a shot from about 30 feet away at the buzzer. That capped a frantic final few seconds in which MSU’s Tum Tum Nairn got a layup to cut it to one, and later missed a layup to go with two missed Georgia layups, setting up Forbes’ final miss.
The late miss aside, Nairn had his best game of the four with 10 points and nine assists.
“Tum Tum really came around and played his best game of this year so far,” Izzo said. “So there were a lot of positives.”
He cited junior center Gavin Schilling, who had 17 points for the second straight day, and senior center Matt Costello, who chipped in with eight points. Those two started together as Izzo experiments with a big lineup. Izzo also said he “got a lot out of” freshman guard Matt McQuaid.
Forbes scored 14 and Denzel Valentine had eight points, his only game in single digits – Izzo said Forbes and Valentine were physically drained by the end.
“We’ve got a couple guys that have got to get better,” Izzo said. “It was not a great tournament for (Marvin Clark Jr). He did not play nearly as well as he played at the end of last year. It surely wasn’t for a lack of effort this summer, he worked hard.”
Clark is in a competition with freshman Deyonta Davis to start at power forward, and Izzo said “some guys are better starters, some guys are better coming off the bench.”
MSU junior guards Eron Harris and Alvin Ellis traveled with the team to Italy but did not play after both had offseason alcohol-related incidents.