Written by Bob Wojnowski at Detroit News.com
All the hype about all the young talent on both teams? Oh, it’s real and legitimate. Unfortunately for Michigan State, the reality of Duke senior sharp-shooter Grayson Allen is just as legitimate.
If this was an appetizer for the college basketball season, yes, we’ll take more please. The No. 1 Blue Devils had too much rebounding and too much Allen and pulled away for an 88-81 victory Tuesday night in the Champions Classic. The No. 2 Spartans flashed their immense potential, led by freshman Jaren Jackson Jr., but naturally, it was the oldest guy on the floor who took over.
Allen scored a career-high 37 points, but when he wasn’t firing up one of his seven 3-pointers, the Spartans hung tough. Not quite tough enough, which surely will grate on Tom Izzo, who now is 1-11 against Mike Krzyzewski.
We saw all the elements that make the Spartans so tantalizing, as Jackson, Miles Bridges and Nick Ward each scored 19. We also saw the concerns about 3-point shooting, and Michigan State was battered on the boards. But trust me, folks, these Blue Devils will batter most opponents far worse than this.
These are the preordained top two teams in the country, and by the sheer volume of talent, they absolutely showed it. No. 1 Duke has all those touted freshmen, but it was Allen who kept shooting them into it.
No. 2 Michigan State has all its great sophomores, led by Bridges, but it was the freshman Jackson pitching in with clutch plays. It was back and forth, even after Duke super-frosh Marvin Bagley III left early with an eye injury. When Ward raced in for a layup and three-point play after the Spartans won a scrap for the ball, the game was tied 56-56 with 12 minutes left.
It tightened up as the Spartans finally started attacking the boards. Jackson’s rebound dunk with 8:07 left sliced Duke’s lead to 65-64, and all over the floor, the initial hype for these teams proved to be legitimate.
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