Denver, CO -- (Sports Network) - Now in his 13th year with the Michigan State Spartans, head coach Tom Izzo tries to work towards his second national championship as he and the Spartans contend with the Pittsburgh Panthers in the second round in the South Region at the Pepsi Center in Denver tonight.

Izzo led the squad to the 2000 title, 21 years after the team picked up its first national championship when the Magic Johnson-led Spartans took care of Larry Byrd and the Indiana State Sycamores. Focusing on this season, fifth- seeded MSU went from losing to Wisconsin in the Big Ten Conference Tournament to tackling the Temple Owls in the first round of the tourney on Thursday with a 72-61 victory.

As for the fourth-seeded Panthers, winners of the Big East Tournament title, they too had an easy go of it in the first round of the 70th annual NCAA Tournament with an 82-63 thrashing of Oral Roberts. The win drew Pitt to within two games of .500 in the tourney all-time at 18-20, while the Spartans are a sizzling 42-20.

The Spartans hold a slim 2-1 edge over Pittsburgh in the all-time series, with MSU taking a narrow 82-81 victory in the most recent meeting more than half a century ago in 1955.

Tonight's winner goes up against the winner of the Memphis/Mississippi State contest in the round of 16 next week.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the matchup with Temple was the manner in which the Spartans took care of Dionte Christmas, limiting one of the top scorers in the Atlantic 10 Conference to a mere three points on 1-of-12 shooting from the floor. Christmas, who was averaging better than 20 ppg heading into the postseason, missed all eight tries beyond the arc. As for the MSU offense, Raymar Morgan turned out to be the top scorer with his 15 points, followed by Chris Allen and Drew Naymick with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Like Christmas for the Owls, Drew Neitzel had a poor shooting game for the Spartans, making just 2-of-11 from the field and 1-of-8 out on the perimeter. The fact that Neitzel was nowhere to be found on offense and the Spartans still picked up the comfortable win means it can only get better for Michigan State once the guard does find his stroke. Neitzel (13.9 ppg, 134 assists) made close to 40 percent of his three-point tries this season, while Morgan (14.5 ppg, 6.2 rpg) helped boost the team's accuracy from the field to 48 percent as he made good on 56.3 percent of his field goal tries.

Oral Roberts knocked down 5-of-11 shots behind the three-point line in the first half against the Panthers on Thursday, but the squad added just two other field goals from inside the arc through the first 20 minutes, eventually resulting in the team's 19-point setback. As for Pittsburgh, the team had a total of five players score in double figures, led by Levance Fields and his 23 points, to go along with a team-best seven assists. Sam Young tacked on 14 points, Gilbert Brown and Keith Benjamin tallied 12 each and Ronald Ramon added 10 points in the victory as the Panthers easily won the battle of the boards, 50-33. For the season, the Panthers were a tough team to beat in the paint, the group outrebounding opponents by almost five boards per game. Young, a 50.7 percent shooter from the field who averages 18.1 ppg, is a big part of the rebounding effort with almost six and a half boards per outing. DeJuam Blair (11.6 ppg), who had 10 rebounds against Oral Roberts, averages a team-best 9.2 rpg and has combined with Young to log 75 blocked shots.