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NCAA Tournament Recap (Mississippi-Michigan St)
Posted: Sun March 14, 1999 at 8:28 p.m. EST MILWAUKEE (Ticker) -- Mateen Cleaves scored seven points during a late 13-0 run that propelled top-seeded Michigan State to a 74-66 victory over Mississippi in a second-round Midwest Region contest of the NCAA Tournament. Cleaves awoke after Mississippi freshman Jason Harrison drilled a long 3-pointer over him to give the Rebels a 59-56 lead with just under five minutes remaining. He immediately tied it with a 3-pointer from the right wing and scored on a fast-break layup moments later to put the Spartans on top for good. "I don't think that it was the three that he (Harrison) hit that ignited us," Cleaves said. "But when I hit mine, I was running down the floor telling his fans that I like his game. I do think that his three ignited us a little bit, because the guys realized that we had to step it up on defense." Mississippi (19-13) went over four minutes without a point following Harrison's 3-pointer and the Spartans connected on 6-of-10 from the foul line in the final 77 seconds to seal the victory. Cleaves finished with 18 points and dished out seven assists for Michigan State (31-4), which advanced to the regional semifinals for the second consecutive season and extended its school-record winning streak to 20 games. The Spartans, who were elimated by North Carolina last year, will face 13th-seeded Oklahoma on Friday in St. Louis. "I thought we did a great job, especially in that late stretch, we executed a little better and got the ball in Mateen's hands on some screen-and-roll type of plays where he could make decisions," Spartans coach Tom Izzo said. Jason Smith netted 18 points for the Rebels, who defeated Villanova, 72-70, in the first round Friday for the first-ever NCAA Tournament victory in school history. "I'm proud of this basketball team, it's players," Mississippi coach Rod Barnes said. "Our seniors have taken this program to another level. It's up to me and the rest of the players and the guys that we recruit to keep this program at the level at which (the seniors) have." The biggest lead either team could manage through the game's first 38 minutes was seven points. The stretch run went back-and-forth as Michigan State unable to pull away because Marcus Hicks kept the Rebels within striking distance. A runner by Smith gave the Rebels a 36-35 lead with 17:08 remaining, but Michigan State scored the next seven points to take a 42-36 lead on a jumper by Morris Peterson. Michael White hit a 3-pointer to bring Mississippi right back into the game. "For the most part, we executed well for almost three quarters of the game," White said. "The last quarter of the game we didn't." Hicks scored five straight points later in the half, but the Rebels were still trailing 54-50 with 7:44 to play after Antonio Smith's tip-in for the Spartans. But Harrison hit two from the line, Keith Carter tied the game with a runner and a steal by Harrison led to Jason Smith's layup that gave Mississippi a 56-54 lead with 5:49 to play. Izzo called timeout and ran a play for Peterson, who tied the game with 5:28 left by following his own shot. Moments later Harrison pulled up from the left wing, and with Cleaves' hand in his face, drained a 3-pointer at the 4:53 mark. Barnes called a timeout following Cleaves' layup that made it 61-59, but Antonio Smith scored underneath, and after a bad pass by White, Cleaves converted an easy layup to make it 65-59 with 2:28 to play. Barnes called another timeout, but Peterson hit a jumper and A.J. Granger hit a pair of free throws to begin Michigan State's parade to the line. "We came out of two timeouts thre and hit two big shots out of sideline out-of-bounds plays," Izzo said. "That was critical ... I was just pleased with the execution in the second half." Andre Hutson had 13 points and Peterson 13 with eight rebounds for Michigan State, which shot 47 percent (25-of-53) from the field and made 21-of-27 free throws. Antonio Smith grabbed eight rebounds to help the Spartans build a 36-29 advantage on the boards. The Spartans used their decisive size advantage to grab 17 offensive rebounds and on several occassions demoralized the Rebels by scoring of the second chance. "They got a lot of rebounds in the first half," Antonio Smith said. "The balls were bounding real long and they're guards came up with a lot of rebounds. We just had to concentrate on boxing and being aggressive to get some boards." Hicks tallied 16 points and seven rebounds and Carter added 10 and eight for the Rebels, shot connected on 43 percent (24-of-56) of their field goals and were 4-of-20 from beyond the arc. "We came to win this game and for 35 minutes we did everything we needed to do to win," Carter said. "You expect to make some big plays. We have nothing to be ashamed of. It's been a good season."© 2000 Sportsticker Enterprises, LP
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