DETROIT — Greg Kampe won’t get his first win over Tom Izzo for Christmas, but he and Oakland sure came close.

No. 9 Michigan State pulled away in the second half for a 79-70 win over Oakland in front of a friendly crowd Saturday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena. The Spartans scored 42 points in the paint and got 27 from its bench to win.

Coen Carr led Michigan State with a career-high 22 points while Carson Cooper (15), Jaxon Kohler (13) and Kur Teng (10) also scored in double digits. For Oakland, forward Tuburu Naivalurua scored 18 and guard Ziare Wells scored 17 as all but three points came from Oakland’s starters.

Oakland led the first half for a longer time than Michigan State, but the Spartans took a 39-36 lead to the locker room. A pair of 3s from Carr and Kur Teng stretched the lead to start the second half. Oakland stumbled early, with a pair of travels on Michael Houge and another bad-pass turnover from point guard Brody Robinson (13 points, eight assists). He settled in with a 3, but Michigan State still pulled out to a 51-41 lead with 15:48 to go.

That big lead stuck around, even as Michigan State (11-1, 2-0 Big Ten) subbed out all its starters and gave a backup-group some run. A layup from forward Isaac Garrett got the lead down to single digits, 55-47, but both offenses slowed midway through the half.

After a strong first half, Carr kept scoring in the second half, including an and-1 layup. But if it was one of his signature dunks that anybody in the crowd asked for as a Christmas gift, then it was a sore sight that Oakland mostly stymied him in transition and off the lob. Still, he found plenty of scoring out of the half court as Michigan State stayed up 10.

If Oakland (6-7, 2-0 Horizon) couldn’t pull quite even, it got close off the hand of forward Naivalurua, who scored 11 in the second half. Two of his layups trimmed MSU’s lead to six points with 8:32 to play. A little over a minute later, he looked to make it even closer but turned the ball over on the baseline.

That’s as close as Oakland came the rest of the way, as Michigan State found just enough offensively, and especially on the glass, to stay in front. With 4:28 to play up 68-62, point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. (two points, five assists) missed a free throw, but Cooper rebounded it and kept the ball on an extra possession that got freshman Jordan Scott to the line for split free throws.

A 3 from Oakland's Wells got the deficit down to six points, but Michigan State just proved too much on the glass, where second chance points proved the difference late.

Michigan State subbed in third-string point guard Denham Wojcik into the game late and struggled, but Izzo kept him on the court as he subbed Fears back in. As Wojcik closed out on a 3 from Oakland's Brett White, Wojcik fell down and watched as White scored the first bench points for Oakland in the game with 1:05 to play.

Michigan State fed its hot hand to start the game, getting a layup from Kohler, who’s averaging a double double to lead the Spartans in scoring and rebounding. But Oakland tied it quick and took the lead off an open corner 3 from Wells.

In 23 meetings before Saturday, Oakland had never beaten Michigan State. Oakland threatened to write some history in the first half as it led for 9:27. The teams traded eight leads and tied the game seven times. Neither could pull away.

A couple of turnovers by Michigan State fed four of the Golden Grizzlies’ first nine points. Down 14-9 with 13:50 to play, Carr subbed back into the game at power forward, where he had a couple radiant performances in Michigan State’s Elite Eight run last season.

Carr instantly added some juice offensively, scoring a layup and assisting a 3 to get the deficit down to 16-14, though Carr took a couple haphazard mid-range shots in the process. After starting the game with goggles to protect his eyes after getting poked in practice Thursday, he had shed them between substitutions. And when he shifted back to the three, he kept going — scoring and dishing Michigan State to a tied ballgame, 18 apiece, at the midpoint of the half.

Uncontrolled offense and poor shooting starved the score column more than good defense, but Michigan State built as much as a five-point lead, 25-20, with 6:55 to play in the half before Oakland got hot from deep. A trio of 3s erased the deficit and put Oakland back out in front. One of those came from Oakland leading scorer Robinson, who banged in yet another deep ball to give Oakland a 32-30 lead with 3:27 to play. Oakland made 6 of 14 3s in the half.

A scoreless minute of play yielded a tie when Carr hit two free throws, the call frustrating Kampe, despite his Izzo-selected Christmas sweater depicting Kampe fist-bumping a ref.

Michigan State took the lead twice in the final 90 seconds from the hands of Cooper. As three players between the teams thwacked against the hardwood, including Garrett who tried to draw a charge on Cooper in transition. It didn’t work, as Cooper jammed one with 1:14 to play. And after another tie, Cooper slammed home an and-1 dunk to take the halftime lead in the final seconds, 39-36.

Oakland didn’t get a single point from its bench or off a second-chance possession in the first half. Michigan State scored 15 bench points and 10 second chance points off nine offensive rebounds.

____

©2025 The Detroit News. Visit detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.