Korie Lucious secured Michigan State’s spot in the Sweet 16, when his 3-pointer as time expired beat Maryland in the second round last weekend.
With the Spartans’ season saved, Lucious was asked to do even more Friday night in the Midwest Regional semifinals against Northern Iowa. The sophomore point guard moved into the starting lineup after leading scorer Kalin Lucas was lost for the season after he ruptured his Achilles’ tendon in the Maryland victory.
Many wondered how fifth-seeded Michigan State would fare minus Lucas. Thanks in big part to the play of Lucious, the Spartans responded with a 59-52 victory over No. 9 Northern Iowa and earned a spot in the Elite Eight against Tennessee on Sunday at the Edward Jones Dome.
Lucious, making the fifth start of his career, played a career-high 39 minutes and contributed 10 points, six rebounds and four assists. Along the way, he gained the confidence of Spartans coach Tom Izzo.
"This guy did a heck of a job, Korie did," Izzo said. "It’s not easy to run the point. It’s not easy to run the point at Michigan State."
And it’s especially not easy to step into the starting role and perform in front of a partisan crowd. The 26,377 in attendance were largely behind the Cinderella Panthers, who were coming off a memorable upset of top-seeded Kansas in the second round.
Lucious credited his teammates for helping him to settle quickly into his new role.
"(They had) the confidence in me to go out there and play the best basketball I can," he said. "It’s a good experience for me stepping in, playing 39 minutes and running a team as a point guard. And it was just a great experience. But I have to give credit to my teammates for helping me out and making things easy for me."
And for good measure, Lucious had another big basket in him Friday night. With Michigan State leading 53-51, Lucious hit a fallaway jumper in the lane with 1 minute, 31 seconds to play to put the Spartans ahead by four points and the game out of reach for Northern Iowa.
"We see that every day in practice from Korie," said Draymond Green, who had eight points and five rebounds for the Spartans. "He works on it every day. And I have a lot on confidence in him."
Lucious’ decisive shot helped Michigan State improve to 27-8 and advance to the Elite Eight for the second consecutive year and seventh time under Izzo.
But the Spartans had to rally past Northern Iowa. The Panthers shot 52 percent in the first half and, behind nine points from Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year Adam Koch, they jumped out to a 29-22 lead at the intermission.
The Spartans erased their deficit in the first five minutes of the second half behind a 16-5 run. A dunk and a lay-up from Delvon Roe made it a three-point game. Chris Allen tied it with a 3-pointer, and a lay-up from Raymar Morgan put the Spartans ahead.
"We just wanted to come out and get a jump-start off at the half," Green said. "We were in Northern Iowa’s backyard in the Missouri Valley Conference, and we didn’t want them to come out with the momentum. We knew we had to come out, get a great start to the second half."
"The second half was a just a team effort," added Durrell Summers, who led the Spartans with 19 points. "Delvon, he came out with a big dunk, and that kind of got us going."
Along the way, Michigan State’s defense clamped down. Northern Iowa, which took its last lead at 45-44, went the final 10:21 without a field goal.
"Certain times in the game, we just kind of huddle up and said, ‘it’s winning time’," Summers said. "And pretty much what winning time means for us is we’re going to get down and bite the floor on defense, and everything’s going to go through our defense."
It was a disappointing finish to a surprising NCAA tournament run for Northern Iowa. The Panthers, the regular season and tournament champions of the Missouri Valley Conference, finished at 30-5.
"We knew this was going to be a tremendous challenge," Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson said. "Obviously, I’m very proud of our guys tonight. I thought we played great. We had one stretch in the second half where I didn’t have us running the right stuff for a few minutes."
Koch finished with 13 points to lead the Panthers. Kwadzo Ahelegbe added 12.
"Just for all of us, we just didn’t want it to end," said Ali Farokhmanesh, who hit the decisive 3-pointer in the victory over Kansas. "We enjoyed playing with each other so much that, yeah, we just didn’t want it to end. Later on, we’ll probably think of it and look back on it. Right now, it’s just hard because we never wanted this to end."
