American skier Mikaela Shiffrin placed outside of the women's giant slalom top 30, while Federica Brignone made it back-to-back wins on home snow Saturday in Sestriere, Italy.
The Spartans (22-5, 13-3) have surged atop the highly competitive conference with their third straight win. The Wolverines (20-6, 12-3) fell out of first place with their first loss in seven games.
Michigan's Vladislav Goldin scored 21 points, Danny Wolf had 11 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, and Nimari Burnett added 12 points. The Wolverines led 38-34 at halftime and the Spartans went ahead for good on Carson Cooper's dunk early in the second half.
Michigan State's Richardson earned his first start of the season on Feb. 8 against Oregon. He scored a season-high 29 points that night and has scored in double-digits in every game since then, including Friday.
Jaden Akins had 11 points, Jeremy Fears scored 10 and Michigan State was 9 of 22 on 3-pointers.
Michigan State: Tom Izzo's team has put itself in a position to win a Big Ten title that wasn't expected to be in reach when the season began. The Spartans have games remaining against conference contenders: No. 11 Wisconsin, No. 20 Maryland and Michigan at home on March 9 in the regular-season finale.
Michigan: The school agreed to a multiyear contract extension for coach Dusty May, announcing the move two hours before tip off. May, a Bob Knight protege, made it clear he is happy and had no interest in being the next coach at Indiana.
Carlo Ancelotti said the LaLiga title race has "reached a point where you can't slip up" as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid go into this weekend's games with just a point between them at the top of the table.
Dmitry Bivol challenges undisputed champion Artur Beterbiev in a light-heavyweight rematch, after Joseph Parker fights Martin Bakole – who replaces the ill Daniel Dubois
The ghost runner gained sentience in 2020 as a pandemic measure to shorten games. It has achieved its goal, and those marathon slogs (or thrillers, depending your viewpoint) are now archaic.
