• Recap
• Bleachers
• Game Tracker

Spartans right ship, rout Purdue

Jan 21, 2012 - 7:54 PM East Lansing, MI (Sports Network) - Branden Dawson scored 14 points, Derrick Nix had 12 and No. 9 Michigan State snapped its two-game losing streak in striking fashion with an 83-58 win over travel-weary Purdue on Saturday.

Austin Thornton added 11 points and Keith Appling scored 10 for the Spartans (16-4, 5-2 Big Ten), who were coming off losses to Northwestern last Saturday and Michigan in a thriller on Tuesday.

They were hardly tested in this one by a Boilermakers team that endured a canceled flight Friday night because of winter weather and a long bus ride to the Breslin Center in the morning.

Purdue (14-6, 4-3) got just two points from leading scorer Robbie Hummel, who went 0-for-11 from the field to finish 14 points below his season average. John Hart and Lewis Jackson scored 10 points apiece in the loss.

Arriving just hours before tipoff, Purdue never looked in sync against a Michigan State team hungry for a win.

The Boilermakers missed eight of their nine three-pointers and shot just 25 percent in the first half, falling behind 31-24 at the break. The seven-point deficit proved too big to overcome as Michigan State poured it on in the second half.

The Spartans, after shooting better than 57 percent in the first half, pushed their lead to double digits in the initial two-plus minutes of the second half and it remained there the rest of the game.

It reached 20 for the first time with around 11 minutes remaining when Brandan Kearney's three-pointer made it 52-32. Later, Michigan State's lead ballooned as high as 30 on two different occasions.

The Spartans have won 18 of the last 28 meetings between the teams, although Purdue still leads the all-time series 65-47.

Game Notes

Hummel entered the game averaging 16.1 points...Purdue shot 29 percent to Michigan State's 60 percent...The Boilermakers will face Michigan on Tuesday, while the Spartans play Minnesota on Wednesday.