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EAST LANSING, Mich. - Playing its third nationally-ranked opponent in four games, Rutgers (6-16, 0-9) fell to No. 12/11 Michigan State (19-4, 6-4), 96-62, on Sunday evening at the Breslin Center. The Spartans shot 53.1 percent behind the arc en-route to tying their school record with 17 three-pointers.

Mike Williams shot 8-of-14 to pace Rutgers with 18 points. Corey Sanders and Omari Grier supplemented Williams' scoring with 17 points each. Sanders also dished-out five assists, while Grier was 5-of-10 from the field and a perfect 6-of-6 at the charity stripe.

Denzel Valentine led Michigan State with 20 points, while Bryn Forbes added 18. The Spartans won the battle on the boards, 56-27 to establish a definitive 33-2 margin in second chance points.

The Scarlet Knights shot 36.9 percent and were 7-of-19 (36.9 percent) from three-point range. Despite being undersized and hampered by injuries, RU battled and drew even, 30-30, in points in the paint.

After Michigan State posted the initial points, Williams knocked down a three the first possession before scoring RU's first seven points. The Spartan response came from long distance, as they made seven three-pointers in the first 11 minutes. MSU used a 20-6 run, keyed by three Forbes triples, to stretch its advantage to 29-15 halfway through the first frame.

Rutgers responded with a run of its own, answering back with a 14-3 stretch that was capped by an 8-0 spurt over a 67-second span. Sanders had six points and Bishop Daniels knocked down a baseline triple to bring the visitors back with striking distance, 32-25.

The defenses took control at the end of the first half, with both squads forcing scoring droughts. A late three-pointer from Forbes provided the home team a 44-33 advantage at the midpoint.

Forbes had 18 points at the intermission, with all six of his makes from distance. Sanders answered with 12 for RU, which held an 18-12 advantage in points in the paint at the break.

Rutgers got scoring from long range to start the second half, with Williams and Daniels each tweaking the twine from behind the arc. The Spartans countered with a 20-0 run, however, to expand their lead to 78-43. Using the momentum from that spurt, MSU pulled away down the stretch to earn the victory.

The Scarlet Knights return home for a contest Wednesday evening against Illinois. Tip-off is at 6:30 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.

Postgame Notes

Mike Williams led the team in scoring for the third straight game with 18 points.

Corey Sanders had 17 points, scoring in double figures for the fifth straight game.

It was the eighth time this season Sanders had at least five assists.

Grier scored in double-figures for the sixth time this season with 17 points.

DJ Foreman had a career-high 12 rebounds.

For the third straight game, Rutgers started Corey Sanders, Bishop Daniels and Mike Williams at guard and DJ Foreman and Greg Lewis at forward.

Postgame Quotes

Rutgers head coach Eddie Jordan

Opening Statement...

It's always a wonderful atmosphere being here as a coach, and I told my kids what to expect from the crowd. For the most part we did a good job staying organized and not getting distracted. To get into the flow of the game and to deal with our size, it wears us out a little more because we're small. Our kids battled and I saw a lot of box-outs from our guys. I mean, you have a 6-foot-9 guy who is thirty or forty pounds heavier who will get a rebound right over our box-out, so I am proud of our guys. I thought we could have stayed more organized offensively in a couple possessions, but that was the only thing I was really disappointed in. We had more faulty possessions offensively.

On Denzel Valentine...

I thought tonight we sort of bypassed him just a little bit, but from what I've seen he almost reminds me of Otto Porter from Georgetown a couple of years ago. He is one of those guys that does everything well. He is a good teammate, they rally around him, he's got a good head on his shoulders from the outside looking in and he just does everything pretty well.

On his team playing a lot of ranked opponents in the Big Ten...

We concentrate on us a lot because of where we are, under-manned and under-sized. We are creating different themes and schemes to play to sort of reinvent ourselves almost on a weekly basis. Mike Williams is an under-sized two-man and he's playing forward, Jonathan Laurent is a backup three and he's playing center, so we are trying to find ways to have our kids play together and have some rhythm. Every game is a tough game, non-conference games are tough games for us. We loved the atmosphere and we love the competition. We've got guys hopefully this time next year singing a different tune.

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo

Opening statement…

Well excited but disappointed. That is kind of how you talk about this game. I mean, when you make 17 3's or whatever we made, you have to be excited, but that old adage that as soon as you make some shots, you decide to stop guarding. So I think that we did a poor job on that and that was disappointing. The plus is that in the second half I think we buckled down a little bit. We got the ball inside a little bit more, we rebounded a little bit better. Those are the things that turn into fast-breaks or kick out 3's, but you still have to make the three's…we had some open looks.

I was proud of his (Eddie Jordan's) team. Only because in the first half after we really punched them, they came back and that's hard to do when you've gone through what he's gone through. He [Eddie Jordan] is missing three really good players, that's three injuries and it's been that way all year. Those guards are going to be pretty good and we didn't guard them very well. All in all, I say that we didn't really turn the ball over till the end. We had about three or four at the end, but we were shooting a little higher percentage. So those kind of things when you have team goals bother me, but outrebounding them the way we did was a plus and making those shots two games in a row. So this week, we will not be working on shooting, we'll work on learning how to guard someone again.