EAST LANSING - Michigan State turned around a early Kansas lead with a big first half run and then coasted to a 75-62 win over the Jayhawks.
Kansas jumped out to an early 7-1 lead, but the Spartans erased that in a hurry, going on a 19-1 run, holding the Jayhawks for over six minutes without a field goal in building a 37-18 halftime lead.
The Jayhawks made a brief run, hung around and then made things close at the end by going on a 12-3 run that cut the MSU advantage to just nine at 61-52.
Kansas guard Sherron Collins scored 20 of his game high 25 points in the second half, but five of those came on questionable calls by the officiating crew that was short a man due to an injury to one of the referees during the game.
Collins fouled out Spartans guard Travis Walton and got three free throws despite his foot being clearly on the line as he attempted a shot. On another questionable call, Raymar Morgan, who scored 13 points and added eight rebounds, also fouled out.
Despite Kansas' six point advantage in the second half, coach Tom Izzo was pleased with the effort of his club. "I think you have to give us a lot of credit because we came out in the first half the way a team's supposed to come out," he said.
"When you do that, you set a tempo - now we didn't finish great - and that's was a little bit of a problem, but I thought we did a pretty good job of shrinking the court and (some other) things that we had worked on."
Kalin Lucas again led the way for the Spartans, scoring 22 points, grabbing five assists and only turning the ball over once. Travis Walton also turned in a solid performance with great defense on Collins in the critical first half, but also chipping in with 11 points and two steals.
MSU turns the page on this high profile non-conference game and hits the road for a Wednesday night matchup with Penn State scheduled as a 6:30 ET tip at State College.