EAST LANSING — It was needless, yet at the same time, important for Tom Izzo to express the obvious.
“To say I was disappointed would be an understatement,” the Hall of Fame coach for Michigan State basketball said. “I did not like the way we played.”
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The 18-point deficit his No. 8 Spartans found themselves in against No. 2 Michigan on Friday, Jan. 30, was one thing. How they got to that point, with porous defense and stagnant offense, bothered Izzo far more.
It was by far MSU’s worst stretch of the season, spread out over a half. You’d have to go back to the Oct. 28 exhibition game at Connecticut to find the Spartans trailing by that many points, 19 in that loss.
“It takes a lot, obviously, when you start slow,” said third-year sophomore point guard Jeremy Fears Jr., who had a career-high 31 points. “You’re always crawling and fighting back. Every bucket hurts.”
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo watches a play against Michigan during the second half at Breslin Center in East Lansing on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026.
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The Spartans rallied, as they’ve done every time this season they found themselves in a hole. That included three days earlier at Rutgers. Only this time, against perhaps the best collection of talent Izzo’s team has faced all year, MSU ran out of steam after seizing a brief lead twice.
“This game took a lot of energy for us,” senior Jaxon Kohler, who had 12 points but went 4-for-13 from the field. “Not only with coverages and defending them, but also the mental energy and mental strength, maturity – how to handle situations when we’re making a comeback and how to take care of the ball against a team like this.”
The Wolverines used their size, depth and skill to their advantage. The Spartans started to show the wear and tear that late January brings, finding few answers after clawing back. And U-M pulled away to an 83-71 victory at Breslin Center that was MSU’s first double-digit loss of the season.
On Izzo’s home court. On his 71st birthday. Against the Spartans’ biggest rival. So disappointment, indeed, was never in doubt. Even though the scope and scale of the comeback left some wiggle room for optimism.
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“There’s things I’ve wanted to do for a couple weeks, because I saw some things coming. And we’ll do that now,” Izzo said. “And yet, I’m not gonna panic over getting beat in a game that we had that one stretch where – just a bad stretch there in that first half. And then the second half, we battle all the way back and then can’t quite get it done at the end.”
Before cryptically saying that, though, Izzo announced a forthcoming lineup change during his postgame radio show. Because it also was clear from MSU’s second-half comeback and Jordan Scott’s performance that the freshman will take over as the starting shooting guard against Minnesota on Wednesday (7 p.m., Big Ten Network).
Izzo had been critical of Divine Ugochukwu, who started 10 of his 19 games this season, and Kur Teng, who has started four times. Those two combined to go scoreless on 0-for-3 shooting against U-M, while Scott scored 10 points on 3-for-7 shooting with four rebounds in his 26 minutes (a personal high against Big Ten foes).
“The lineup will change, there’s no question in my mind. I can announce that right now,” Izzo said on the Spartan Sports Network postgame show. “I’ve just been playing on borrowed time.”
Michigan forward Morez Johnson Jr. (21) and Michigan State forward Jordan Scott (6) battle for the ball during the first half at Breslin Center in East Lansing on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026.
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The 6-foot-7 Scott started the second half in place of Ugochukwu and had seven points and two steals after halftime. His length on the boards and defensively meshed well with stalwart starters Fears, Kohler, Coen Carr and Carson Cooper in helping MSU recover from the 42-24 deficit, in the final seconds before halftime, all the way to a two-point lead with less than eight minutes to play.
“I thnk we know we just need to be able to put together 40 minutes,” Scott said. “We definitely showed glimpses throughout the game of the capability that we’re able to play at.”
The furious 31-13 comeback after trailing by 18 brought back Tuesday’s rally at Rutgers from 12 points down in the final 9:39 to force overtime. In that one, Fears took over after shaking off a brutal first half, scoring 27 of his 29 points in the second half and overtime to orchestrate an 88-79 victory.
Against U-M, Fears eclipsed that previous career high by scoring 19 of his 31 points in the second half to go with seven assists, five rebounds and four steals. It was his 10th straight game scoring in double figures, and he is averaging 19.8 points and 8.3 assists over that span.
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But Fears went just 9-for-20 from the floor as the Wolverines baited him and Coen Carr to shoot from deep, with the two starters combining for 1-for-8 beyond the arc as part of a 4-for-23 3-point shooting performance by the Spartans as a whole.
Kohler was just 2-for-7 from deep and continued his offensive struggles, going 4-for-13 overall to finish with 12 points. U-M held MSU to 26.9% in the first half and 36.7% overall – just the third time this season Izzo’s team was held under 40% shooting. The other two came in the Spartans’ two previous losses, 31.8% at home against No. 4 Duke and 34% on the road at No. 5 Nebraska.
Izzo blamed himself for playing Kohler for too long, a career-high 36:17. Over the past five games – which included two games on the West Coast at Washington and Oregon and one on the East Coast against Rutgers – the 6-foot-9 forward is just 4-for-22 from 3-point range and averaging 8.4 points and 5.8 rebounds. He was posting 14.4 points and 10.1 rebounds in his first 17 games this season.
Michigan center Aday Mara (15) block a jump shot from Michigan State forward Jaxon Kohler (0) during the first half at Breslin Center in East Lansing on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026.
Kohler also grabbed just five rebounds against the Wolverines, while his fellow senior captain, Cooper, equaled his season low with two rebounds to go with just six points and three turnovers in 26:15.
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The fatigue factor and wear and tear, Kohler said, is motivating him to get back to where he was before the trip west.
“It challenges me to find inner strength and to find that energy,” Kohler said. “When you feel like your back’s against the wall, when you feel like you’re beat, when you feel like you’re down, when shots aren’t falling in, when it seems like things aren’t working the way they should be, it’s a challenge.”
The same challenge the rest of the Spartans face to remain in the Big Ten title hunt over the final nine games of the regular season. And more urgently, they know they can’t let one loss spiral into two or more.
“We’re gonna watch the film (Saturday) and just keep it there,” Carr said. “We gotta tell the younger guys, the new guys – just move on.”
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Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tom Izzo: Michigan State basketball will start freshman Jordan Scott
