Whistle blows on Davidson’s season in NCAA tournament loss to Michigan State
Davidson forced Michigan State to summon a double-digit run and a career day from senior Joey Haus in order to escape to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Davidson fell to Michigan State, 74-73, on Friday night at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville.
The Wildcats finish the year 27-7, still without an NCAA tournament win since the team’s 2008 Elite Eight run powered by then-rising star Stephen Curry.
“We got into the center of the ring and we fought,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop said. “We got knocked down a few times. We stayed in the center ring and we kept fighting. We just ran out of time. I could not be more proud of our guys.”
The Wildcats hung tough in the first half. And they did so despite not everything going as planned: Davidson started the game shooting just 2 of 7 from the field. The team also saw its Atlantic 10 Player of the Year, Luka Brajkovic, accumulate two fouls in four minutes — a prospect that kept the 6-foot-10 big man off the court for most of the first half.
But thanks to an almost even rebounding line (18-15, MSU) and inspired first-half performances from sophomores Sam Mennenga and backup point guard Grant Huffman — the two combined for 14 points, four assists and four rebounds in the first half — Davidson stayed in it.
The Spartans led 32-31 at halftime.
The back-and-forth affair continued through the second half. And after the break, the Wildcats had their go-to guy: Brajkovic took over for a stretch in the second half. He scored on back-to-back crucial possessions at one point, his last of which a prayer-of-a-long-two at the end of a broken play as the shot clock dwindled that somehow sailed true.
At that point, with 9:29 left in the game, the senior big had 13 points on 6-of-7 shooting in only 14 minutes. Davidson led, 52-49.
Davidson led by as many as five points after another Brajkovic layup with 6:51 to go, but that spawned a 10-0 Michigan State run that the Wildcats could never recover from.
The game felt like it was over when one of Davidson’s leading scorers, Hyunjung Lee, drove to the basket and was called for a charge with just 1:00 left with the Wildcats down seven.
But the Davidson players never stopped believing.
“I thought we fought throughout the whole game,” Mennenga said. “There were runs that Michigan State went on and the crowd got loud and the crowd got into it, but I thought we always fought and we always believed. I think that was the biggest thing for us.
“A couple plays at the end didn’t go our way, and that was the game. But I thought we did such a great job of fighting.”
It wasn’t, though. Wildcat senior point guard Foster Loyer, a Michigan State transfer, converted a three-point play and then Brajkovic hit a 3 to cut the game’s margin to four. Then, after a missed MSU free throw, Loyer hit a 3 to cut the game to 72-70 with four seconds left.
But MSU’s Tyson Walker hit those two ensuing free throws to put the game out of reach, even after Lee hit a 3 to draw the game to one.
The Spartans will play Duke on the same court on Sunday night.
Here are some other takeaways from Greenville.
Two legendary coaches face off
McKillop and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo faced off for the first time on Friday night in Greenville. The two coaches have built legacies of legend at their respective schools.
McKillop has won 634 games at Davidson since arriving as the head coach in 1989 — adding seven Southern Conference tournament titles and one Atlantic 10 tournament title.
Izzo has won 666 games since taking over as head coach in 1995. Of those wins: one was national championship (2000), six were Big Ten tournament titles and eight led to Final Four appearances.
The two were named to Jay Bilas’ top-10 best coaches in the 2022 NCAA tournament.
Davidson’s Brajkovic, Mennenga have surprising second half
Davidson’s frontcourt was the story much of Friday night.
Brajkovic, the Atlantic 10’s POY, was a story worth reading in both halves. He found himself in foul trouble and spent a ton of time on the bench in the first half because of it. He was the story in the second half, too — this time being who he was advertised to be. He finished the game going 8-for-10 from the field for 18 points, scoring all but two of those points in the second half. He managed to stay out of foul trouble, too, after the break.
And when Brajkovic was on the Davidson sideline — for foul reasons or not — sophomore Sam Mennenga was indelible, too. He finished with 15 points and 3-for-5 from the 3-point line.
They played together kind of like a bass guitarist and a lead guitarist would: What Brajkovic had in steadiness and reliability, Mennenga matched him in grit and surprise.
Davidson finished with 32 points in the paint. MSU finished with 32 points in the paint, too.
Brajkovic played a great final game of college basketball, giving his team the edge against a formidable, physical, Big Ten frontcourt.
He and his team played so hard — and perhaps so well — that it didn’t feel like the season was over on Friday night.
“For the past four years, I’ve played for Davidson, so it just feels surreal for me that that’s my last game,” Brajkovic said. “I will miss it so much. I had the best four years of my whole life, and I grew so much as a player and person. It’s just hard to realize that it’s all gone.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2022 at 11:59 PM.
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