In a season of ups and downs, the Hoosiers continue to trudge through the increasingly unpredictable and rough Big Ten conference play by hosting the No. 11 Michigan State Spartans (14-4, 6-1 B1G) who have Conference Player of the Year hopeful and the all-time Big Ten leader in assists, Cassius Winston.

Indiana started the season with expectations to make a push for the NCAA Tournament and have several solid Quadrant I wins against teams such as Ohio State and Florida State (both at home), but one of the biggest areas they were lacking was a road win especially in the Big Ten until last weekend. The Hoosiers traveled to Lincoln, Neb. and defeated the Cornhuskers, 82-74. Even though the Cornhuskers are near the bottom of the Big Ten, any road win in the conference is tough to come by.

Additionally, Indiana has no “bad losses.” This is something that should not get overlooked when teams across the country like Kentucky have bad losses that are carved into their resumes. Regardless, Indiana needs more help to solidify their resume and punch a ticket into the NCAA Tournament and hosting Michigan State is an opportunity to do so that the Hoosiers need to capitalize on.

Indiana has had recent success against the Spartans handing the Final Four team from a year ago their only home loss, and going 0-2 on the season to Indiana. Both were impressive games by the Hoosiers in a season where Indiana had struggled immensely in conference play having losing streaks of five and seven games on separate occasions.

Michigan State does not have the dominant team as last year. On the flip side, Indiana has been able to keep relatively healthy since the non-conference and they are starting to show signs of improvement after a five to six game period of lackluster floor performance.

As fans of the conference witness every single evening, anything is possible when it comes to Big Ten conference play this season.

How to Watch

WhoMichigan State Spartans at Indiana Hoosiers
WhenThursday Jan. 23, 2020 8:30 p.m. ET
WhereSimon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Indiana
TicketsFind the Lowest Ticket Prices on SeatGeek
WatchFS1
StatsLive Stats
ListenIU Radio Network
SpreadMichigan State -3.5

Getting to Know the Spartans

Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo has once again put together and developed a top tier team that is looking to make a deep push into the NCAA Tournament. As the last undefeated team in conference play, they have been consistent and playing their best basketball on the year until they traveled to Mackey Arena to face the Boilermakers and were embarrassed in a 71-42 loss. Fortunately for the Spartans, they stepped up against Wisconsin team and won 67-55 at home.

No one is concerned that the Spartans are not real, and the Purdue game was on the road in a very hostile, difficult arena. Tom Izzo acknowledged this and will look to find ways to prevent this from happening again when they travel to Bloomington to another one of the NCAA’s toughest arenas and one in which they lost 63-62 last year.

Kenpom.com still considers Michigan State a top-tier team and currently have them ranked No. 7 overall. They excel at keeping the ball moving behind team leader Cassius Winston who is top-25 in assists in the country and the current Big Ten all-time leader in this category. He is also near the top of the conference in points with 18.8 per game. He has been consistently scoring over 20 points besides when they traveled on the road to Purdue where he only scored 10 points in their loss and now 6 points against Wisconsin at home. Additionally, in their loss against Purdue, Winston struggled immensely and was a big factor in why the Spartans were not able to recover. He was responsible for nine of their 18 turnovers.

Michigan State is an overall very well rounded team that will need to rediscover the deep threat in order to succeed against Indiana. Against Purdue, they shot an awful 2-16 from deep which made their climb from the pit Purdue put them in even harder. Winston and sophomore Aaron Henry have been two of the primary deep threats for the team and each convert between 34-37% of their threes; however, they went 1-7 in their loss at Purdue. Against Wisconsin, they improved to 6-16 from deep and had an overall well-rounded approach to their attack.

To make matters more difficult, the Spartans will need to progress through the next few weeks without the guard position help of Kyle Ahrens after losing him to an Achilles injury.

Expect Tom Izzo to address these obstacles and for them to try to not get in a situation they need to climb out of again. Xavier Tillman will work toward taking high-percentage close shots which he excels at to >60% 2PT%. Putting Indiana down early will force the Hoosiers to make shots they are uncomfortable with such as threes and make it exceedingly difficult to recover.

The Spartans are widely considered the top team in the country even though they do not have a perfect conference record any longer. They will need to see strong leadership from Winston and Tillman as conference play continues and for them to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.

Projected Starting Lineups

Indiana HoosiersMichigan State Spartans
G: #1 Al DurhamG: #5 Cassius Winston
G: #10 Rob PhiniseeF: #23 Xavier Tillman
F: #3 Justin SmithF: #30 Marcus Bingham Jr.
F: #4 Trayce Jackson-DavisF: #11 Aaron Henry
C: #50 Joey BrunkF: #44 Gabe Brown

What to Watch For

1. Early three point shooting for Indiana

For a team that has not been impressive from behind the arc, we would assume that Indiana would avoid shots from behind the arc like the plague. Instead, Indiana seemed to have the full green light to take advantage of openings against Nebraska. The Hoosiers shot a season-high 29 attempts from behind the arc against Nebraska on the road, that’s right after going 2 of 19 in Piscataway earlier in the week.

— IndianaHQ (@IndianaHQ) January 19, 2020