Morgan dominated the offensive glass en route to a season-high 13 boards.

Angry at his team’s first half performance, Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo lit a fire into sophomore G Kalin Lucas at halftime, and Lucas’ performance in the first four minutes of half #2 proved to be the difference in a 77-66 MSU win over Northwestern in Evanston, IL, Saturday night.

Raymar Morgan had 22 points and grabbed a season-high 13 boards as the tenth-ranked Spartans won their seventh straight game. The 77 points MSU scored also thwarted a streak of 15 consecutive games Northwestern

“I thought we really struggled tonight,” said a critical Izzo. “Thank God Raymar played a good first half and Kalin played a great second half.”

The first-half was a hotly contested twenty minutes with both teams trying to dictate game tempo. Northwestern would constantly get into halfcourt sets while MSU, quite obviously, was being coached to try and beat the Wildcats down the floor so they couldn’t set up their patented 1-3-1 matchup zone.

The two teams’ stars, Morgan and Kevin Coble (NU), had nearly identical stat lines at the intermission, each pouring in twelve points. After them, the wealth (at least scoring wise), was fairly spread out amongst the supporting cast.

Despite the defeat, Northwestern has something to hang its hat on. It is clear that this Wildcat squad is going to be in every game it plays this year, and that a post-season tournament berth is not out of the question. “Don’t take my disappointment in my team away from what [Northwestern] did, because they’re good,” Izzo said. “This league is really, really, good. Northwestern is a really good basketball team. I am glad to have survived here and I’m not looking forward to playing them [in East Lansing]. It’s just a tough team to prepare for.”