ST. LOUIS — No big shots from Ali Farokhmanesh. No mid-major magic.

Just another trip to the regional final for Michigan State.

Durrell Summers scored 19 points and Korie Lucious hit a whirling turnaround jumper with about 1:30 left, helping the fifth-seeded Spartans survive a scare with a 59-52 victory against pesky Northern Iowa in the Midwest Regional semifinals Friday night.

Playing without its injured star, Kalin Lucas, Michigan State (27-8) needed a half to get used to Northern Iowa’s grinding style and held the Panthers to 10 free throws and no field goals over the final 10:22.

Northern Iowa (30-5) knocked off one March monster but couldn’t make it two straight, unable to contain the athletic Spartans for an entire game after stunning top-seeded Kansas in the second round.

Adam Koch had 13 points and Kwadzo Ahelegbe 12 for the Panthers, but Farokhmanesh, the early-round hero, was just 1 of 6 from 3-point range.

Michigan State, last year’s national runner-up, turned the game on defense in the second half, escaping with a difficult victory as Lucas watched from the bench in a walking boot.

Lucious, the second-round hero, hit his acrobatic shot, then the Spartans held. Chris Allen followed with a putback with 31 seconds left, putting the Spartans up 57-51 and on their way to Sunday’s regional final against sixth-seeded Tennessee.

A few years back, maybe this was a mismatch: the powerhouse from the Big Ten against the scrappy mid-major.

Not this year.

Northern Iowa has done its best to shake the underdog tag, reaching the NCAA tournament five of the past seven years, moving into the Round of 16 this season for the first time with victories against UNLV and the top overall seed, Kansas.

BAYLOR 72, SAINT MARY’S 49: LaceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter made 3-pointers on their first shots and later combined for a highlight alley-oop dunk as third-seeded Baylor (28-7) rushed to a huge lead and romped past 10th-seeded Saint Mary’s (28-6) at Houston.

The Bears led 46-17 at halftime and could begin looking ahead to Sunday, when they will play Duke for a chance at their first Final Four since 1950, when there were only eight teams in the field.

Dunn scored 23 points with four 3-pointers and Carter added 14 points for Baylor.

Omar Samhan, who had become a breakout star in the tournament with his dominating play in the first two rounds and the one-liners when talking or tweeting, finished with 15 points and nine rebounds for the Gaels.

He had made only 1 of 8 shots and had only three points at halftime.

“Bottom line, when it was all said and done, I was proud of what we did this year,” Coach Randy Bennett said. “I told them we stunk tonight. … Nobody wanted it to go that way but it went that way.”

DUKE 70, PURDUE 57: Kyle Singler scored 24 points and Jon Scheyer added 18, snapping out of a shooting slump just in time to help top-seeded Duke (32-5) advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2004 with a victory against fourth-seeded Purdue (29-6) at Houston.

Scheyer, the leading scorer for Duke, was 5 of 18 from the field in the Blue Devils’ first two NCAA tournament games. He went 5 of 9 in the second half after missing his first six shots and also went 7 of 8 from the foul line.

Nolan Smith scored 15 points and Brian Zoubek grabbed 14 rebounds for the Blue Devils, who will face third-seeded Baylor in the South regional final Sunday.

JaJuan Johnson scored 23 points and E’Twaun Moore added 18 for the Boilermakers.