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Allen helps Michigan State bury Indiana

Feb 8, 2009 - 3:30 AM EAST LANSING, Michigan (Ticker) -- After dropping two straight at home, No. 14 Michigan State has re-asserted its homecourt dominance.

Chris Allen came off the bench and put on a display from beyond the arc to help Michigan State run away from Indiana, 75-47, on Saturday.

Allen shot 5-of-8 from the floor and 4-of-4 on 3-pointers to finish with 16 points for the Spartans (19-4, 9-2 Big Ten), who outscored the Hoosiers, 41-22, after the break.

"I think somewhere along the line in the second half anywhere from the 17-minute mark to the 10-minute mark, somewhere in there, we were still hanging in," Indiana coach Tom Crean said. "But their depth, their speed, their toughness, it just took control of the game. It took control of the game. This was a game where we did not have much margin for error anywhere."

After dropping games to Northwestern and Penn State in East Lansing, Michigan State dominated No. 19 Minnesota, 76-47, at the Breslin Center on Wednesday before spending the second half on Saturday dismantling Indiana.

"They are an outstanding basketball team," Crean said. "I'm not surprised with how good they are - they've been the standard here in this league for a long time, and our players saw that first hand."

After the Hoosiers (6-16, 1-9) scored the first four points of the second half to pull within 33-30, the Spartans went on a 13-1 run to bust the game open. A 16-4 run capped by Allen's 3-pointer with 4:44 left pushed the lead to 63-39.

Freshman Draymond Green added 15 points and 12 rebounds and Goran Suton chipped in 12 points as Michigan State dominated on the inside with a 36-27 rebounding advantage.

"Five-for-five from the field, 5-for-5 from the line, 12 rebounds and 15 points, but he had that one turnover," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said of Green. "He was a surprise today, he got some big-time rebounds. He is shooting a lot better, so he helped us a lot in there today."

The big games from Green and Suton helped overcome a combined 5-of-26 performance from top scorers Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers.

"I thought it was a very strange basketball game," Izzo said. "I don't know that I have ever seen us miss that many shots, and the two guys that missed the most, Durrell and Kalin, shot the ball really well last night and this morning."

Verdell Jones scored 13 points to lead the Hoosiers, who shot just 31 percent (13-of-42) in losing for the 12th time in 13 contests.

Crean coached under Izzo at Michigan State, helping guide the team to three Final Four appearances.

"I never like facing my assistants," Izzo said. "I said that he is one of the guys I like playing against the least because I feel that so many of the banners up in the rafters are because of him as well. He was the first guy I hired when I got here and we had a goal to take the program to an elite level, and in that four-year period, I thought we did that."

Indiana was coming off its lone Big Ten win, a 68-60 triumph over Iowa on Wednesday.