Michigan State players and head coach Tom Izzo knew that they might see performances they never have from junior point guard Lourawls Nairn this week, given the Nassau native was returning home to play in front of friends and family for the first time.

Wednesday's game against St. John's certainly couldn't have provided any more truth to those proclamations about what Nairn would do.

Entering the game averaging 2.3 points per game, Nairn scored more points on Wednesday than he had in the previous four games of the year combined, providing 13 points in a 73-62 Michigan State victory in the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

Michigan State (3-2) advanced to meet No. 20 Baylor in Thursday's semifinals.

Not known as even a decent shooter, Nairn went 5 of 7 from the field overall and made 3 of 4 shots from behind the 3-point line.

"I told him that I think he did some things that he hasn't done in his career," Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo said during his postgame interview on the Spartan Sports Network. "He hit three 3's in one game and he made a dunk. It was his first one. He played great."

Also playing great for Michigan State was freshman forward Miles Bridges, who continued a terrific start to the season by scoring 22 points and pulling down 15 rebounds, 12 of which came in the first half alone.

After getting outrebounded on Sunday by Florida Gulf Coast, 41-29, Michigan State got back to its more traditionally dominance on the boards against St. John's, outrebounding the Red Storm by a margin of 55-33.

"I was embarrassed," Izzo said. "I felt like we let every (former) player down in that last game when we got pummeled on the boards. We couldn't work on it, but we sure as (heck) talked about it. I think we got some things straightened out in our cut-outs. We were boxing out really well and we got some rebounds. Miles was an animal in the first half."

Much like Baylor did in its game against VCU earlier in the day, Michigan State broke open a close game with a strong surge late in the second half, outscoring the Red Storm 18-9 over the final 8:22 after the Spartans only held a 55-53 lead.

The Spartans went on a 12-0 run after that to take a 67-53 lead, holding St. John's without a field goal for 5:59 until the Red Storm finally broke their drought.

Senior Eron Harris added 14 points and seven rebounds and freshman center Nick Ward had nine points and 11 rebounds for Michigan State, which shot 43.1 percent from the field.

Freshman guard Marcus LoVett had 20 points and seven rebounds, freshman Shamorie Ponds scored 12 points and junior Bashir Ahmed added 10 points for St. John's (2-2), which shot 30.8 percent from the field.

The Red Storm play VCU in Thursday's consolation round.

St. John's was held over 25 points below its season average of just under 88 points a game, and head coach Chris Mullin lamented all the missed opportunities and offensive execution of his team.

"We tried to concentrate on moving the ball to start and getting the ball inside," Mullin said. "We got good looks, but we didn't make them. You have to keep going to that and hope these guys will come through. We had eight assists and that's not really the kind of game I want to play. We tried everything. We tried inside-outside, we tried pick-and-roll. I don't think we had any fastbreak points the past two games. We got enough looks but we didn't knock any down. When you shoot 30 percent, you're not going to win a game."

NOTES: Michigan State and St. John's met for the first time in 37 years and only the third time in their respective histories. St. John's won both prior meetings in 1968 and 1979. ... St. John's freshman Marcus LoVett entered the game averaging 24.3 points per game, which was the second-highest scoring average for a freshman in the nation behind Markelle Fultz of Washington (27.0). ... Michigan State also relies on freshmen to produce this season, with the class of Miles Bridges, Josh Langford, Nick Ward and Cassius Winston combining for 36.8 points, 19.4 rebounds and 10.3 assists per game. ... Despite missing two of its taller players along the frontcourt to injury, 6-9 Gavin Schilling and 6-9 Greg Carter, Michigan State still entered with a rebounding margin of plus-4...St. John's made 11 shots from 3-point range in each of its first three games of the season, the first time in program history it made double-digit shots from behind the 3-point line in three consecutive games, before making eight Tuesday.