MSU Basketball Team in Shocker in East Lansing

Texas Southern shocked the basketball world Saturday by beating #25 ranked Michigan State Spartans 71-64 at the Breslin Center.   The Texas Southern Tigers coached by former Big Ten and Indiana basketball coach Mike Davis pulled of the upset of the young basketball season by beating a good (8-3) team on their home court. 

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo took responsibility for the teams loss.   The Spartans seemed to play with just enough to stay ahead of the Tigers until the last 2 minutes of the game.   The Tigers then would go ahead and lead until a free throw tied the game at the end of regulation.   Texas Southern would then dominant the entire overtime period and end pulling away with the victory.   MSU would keep fouling and Texas Southern would make the free throws to seal the deal. 

Tom Izzo would experiment with several different players at the beginning of the game to get some playing time for younger Spartans.   Michigan State without a true center this year has been using Matt Costello and Gavin Schilling down low.   But he hardly has had them in at the same time.   The Spartan gunners seemed to go ice cold down the stretch.   Denzel Valentine provided much of the fire power for the Spartans early on with his 15 points on the day.   MSU would lead 30-25 going into halftime. 

The star of the game from the Spartans standpoint would be Bay City Western High School product Matt Costello.   The 6'9" forward would get another double/ double for the Spartans with 17 points and 10 rebounds in just 22 minutes of action.   Costello is now coming off the bench and seems to be producing at a higher level.    The 2014 Academic All-Big Ten selection is starting to put up the numbers that many thought he would do coming out of High School.

MSU now will face the Citadel in the last non conference game of this season on Monday before they start their  Big Ten season with Maryland on December 30th.   The Spartans will be looking to improve as the season progresses and hopes to have Brandon Dawson a pre-season All-American candidate back for the early part of the Conference season.