Insider: Road schedule provides test of toughness for Michigan State basketball
EAST LANSING — If Miles Bridges wants to win a national title, it is going to be a long journey the rest of the way.
And the road has not been kind to Michigan State and its star sophomore the past two years.
The ninth-ranked Spartans, who head to Illinois on Monday (9 p.m., Fox Sports 1), have not turned the corner this season in two hostile environments away from home.
Seven of MSU’s final 11 games are on the road, a vital stretch if Tom Izzo’s team wants to win a Big Ten championship. More importantly, if they expect to chase those bigger goals for which Bridges returned.
“I’m going to find out Monday night,” MSU coach Tom Izzo said after Friday’s dominant 85-57 home blowout of Indiana. “A lot of other people haven’t been doing so good on the road, either. It’s not like this is a Michigan State thing. This is a problem. Plus our schedule. You’ve never seen anything like that, have you, where seven of the last 11 are on the road?
“Our job is to get better every day so we can handle the road.”
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MSU (17-3, 5-2 Big Ten) struggled in its first true road game Dec. 5 at Rutgers. It took two late 3-pointers from Cassius Winston for the Spartans to overcome a sloppy and shaky start, escaping with a 62-52 victory.
That was the toughest test during the Spartans’ 14-game win streak after losing to Duke in the Champions Classic in Chicago. Nine of those wins came at Breslin Center, while four were on neutral floors (including one over Oakland at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit).
But last season’s problems reemerged Jan. 7 in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State dominated a six-minute segment from the end of the first half and broke MSU’s win streak with an 80-64 victory. The Spartans returned to Breslin, survived 76-72 in overtime over Rutgers, then lost to Michigan on Jan. 13, 82-72.
“I mean, we’re great at home games, we’re great at neutral sites,” Bridges said. “We just gotta get better at away games, when everyone is against us. That’ll just show a sign of maturity to us.”
Road games plagued last year's team. Of their seven losses in nine road games in 2016-17, six came by nine or fewer points. Five of those, including a 73-70 defeat at Illinois, were in Big Ten play after a nine-point non-conference loss at Duke. The Spartans also dropped an eighth on a technically neutral court in Philadelphia to Penn State.
The other two losses were by 29 at Michigan and 17 at Purdue, arguably two of their most high profile road contests.
“That same focus, that same energy we come into these home games with, we gotta double it on the road," Winston said. "It’s us against everybody on the road, and we gotta be prepared for that.”
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It looks to be less difficult than most years. The home stretch of the regular season starts with perhaps the most favorable return trip against an Illini team (10-10, 0-7) that remains winless in Big Ten play. Only Indiana, at 4-3, has a conference record over .500 among the Spartans’ seven road foes, which are a combined 18-36 in league play after Saturday’s games.
Izzo liked what he saw against the Hoosiers on Friday. MSU played 40 minutes of stingy defense and grabbed 18 more rebounds than Indiana. The Spartans hit 10 3-pointers and shot 54.2 percent, limiting their turnovers to seven and showing better ball movement and a resurgent transition game that had been missing in the previous three games.
“That’s all travel worthy. That goes everywhere,” Izzo said. “I’m going to try my hardest to keep pushing that to these guys morning, noon and night because when we’re moving the ball and we’re running it’s a fun team to watch.”
The next — and perhaps biggest — step is to take that to their opponents’ gyms. It will be a true test of whether a young group is growing up or remaining stagnant heading toward the postseason.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari.