Bright green fight: MSU 74, Maryland 65

EAST LANSING – “Very, very limited” was the Tom Izzo word on Michigan State senior center Matt Costello before Saturday’s game against Maryland, because of a left ankle Costello rolled three days earlier, in MSU’s third straight loss.

Costello did not look very limited in collecting 15 points, 12 rebounds, three blocks and two steals in 32 minutes.

Or in soaring from one side of the key to the other to smack a shot out of bounds with MSU clutching a late lead.

Or in picking up Izzo and twirling him around when the Spartans’ largest win of the season was assured and Costello got his chance for a standing ovation from the loudest Breslin Center in some time.

“Probably looking back on it now, it’s gonna be a little awkward,” Costello said afterward of his moment with Izzo to cap a 74-65 win for the No. 11 Spartans over the No. 7 Terrapins. “But at the time, it was perfect.”

MSU's Matt Costello expected to play, be "very limited"

So was this as a remedy for the reeling Spartans (17-4, 4-4 Big Ten), who avoided a fourth straight loss for the first time since 2007 – and a third straight at Breslin for the first time since 1997 – while lifting Izzo into a tie with Gene Keady for the second-most wins at a Big Ten school (512).

They did it in special Nike lime-green jerseys, in the first ESPN “GameDay” featured game of the season, by playing “the hardest we’ve played in years,” Izzo said, and with defensive connectivity that was vastly improved as necessary.

And they did it with seniors playing their best, through pain and slumps. Denzel Valentine had 19 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists, narrowly missing his third triple-double and fighting through his own late ankle twist.

Bryn Forbes scored a game-high 25 points, overcoming a three-game swoon. His defense and the defense of MSU junior guard Eron Harris on Maryland standout point guard Melo Trimble (24 points, three assists) helped the Spartans hold the Terps (17-3, 6-2) to 36.7% shooting in the teams’ only regular-season meeting.

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And Costello was everywhere. He finished 9-for-10 from the foul line, including all six of his attempts in the final 4:36 of the game to help a three-point lead grow. His offensive rebound of an Alvin Ellis miss with 28 seconds left got Forbes to the line to put the Spartans up 70-65.

And he didn’t practice for a minute after rolling the left ankle late in MSU’s 72-71 loss to Nebraska.

“He didn’t go through walk-through,” Izzo said of MSU’s dress rehearsal Saturday before the game. “Heroic effort by him, but I like the part about the three seniors. You get maligned a lot for having seniors sometimes, and it’s nice to see seniors do something special.”

The Spartans were starting to “feel like we didn’t know what winning felt like,” Valentine said, after three straight losses – the last two of which ended on potential Valentine game-winning shots that narrowly missed. Both of those games and Saturday’s also saw MSU starting point guard Tum Tum Nairn on the bench with plantar fasciitis in his right foot, and he’ll be there for an undetermined period of time.

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That’s why Valentine yelled out in the jubilant locker room afterward that Harris was the MVP for his defense on Trimble. There was no debating who had the celebration of the night.

“Yeah, I’ll try not to do it again,” Costello said of his 360-degree spin of Izzo, finished with a hair mussing.

“I could use a ride once in a while,” Izzo said. “It’s not all bad.”