Men's basketball battles but falls at Michigan State

Saturday, December 10

East Lansing, MI

4:30 p.m.

Brown University

6-5,0-0Ivy League

Michigan State

7-4,1-1Big Ten

Brown

Michigan St.

Men's basketball battles but falls at Michigan State

12/10/2022 7:20:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The Brown men's basketball team fell to Michigan State 68-50 Saturday evening in the first game between to two teams since 2006.

"We obviously struggled to score the ball," head coach Mike Martin '04 said. "I thought their defense was very prepared and their physicality, their switching, and just their defense in general made it very hard for us. We weren't at our best offensively and obviously, they had a lot to do with it.

"Our defense kept us in it for a little bit, but then we were putting way too much pressure on our defense to consistently get stops because our offense was not where it needed to be."

Paxson Wojcik, playing against his father, Michigan State assistant coach Doug Wojcik, posted a double-double with 10 points, a career-high 13 rebounds, and a team-high four assists. Malachi Ndur had a career-high 10 points and four boards. Aaron Cooley scored five points and blocked two shots. Dan Friday had four points, five rebounds, and three assists.

Brown opened the scoring as Kino Lilly Jr. connected with Kalu Anya for a layup on the fast break to take the first lead of the game. After a Wojcik three, the Bears led 5-4 at the first media timeout.

The Spartans took the lead out of the timeout and tried to stretch it out, but the Bears twice battled back to get within one, the second of the two times coming at 11:05 of the half after a Wojcik layup to cut MSU's lead to 11-10.

From there, the Spartans started to click offensively and would stretch their lead out to as many as 14 in the first half. That's how they would go into the break, up 32-18.

MSU opened the second half and began to build its lead up, but a three-point play from Cooley with 13:06 to go seemed to give Brown a spark. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to get back within striking distance.

AJ Lesburt Jr. recorded his first collegiate points on a reverse layup with 1:24 to go in the game, but Brown would fall by 18.

The Bears took care of the ball against their Big Ten opponent, committing a season-low nine turnovers.

Brown will now have 10 days off before returning to action on Wednesday, Dec. 21 at 7 p.m. in a home matchup with New Hampshire.

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