Couch: Michigan State is back on course in the Big Ten. That's not what's most important.

MADISON, Wis. – For three months, one word best described Michigan State’s basketball team: Connectivity. The Spartans were as connected on both ends of the court as you’ll ever find in college hoops.

The problem with being defined by connectivity as a basketball team as opposed to, say, athletic talent, is that you’re one discombobulated evening from losing the trait that makes you who you are. One guy off his game creates havoc. 

On the other hand, for this MSU team, when it’s all going right, it’s something. It was something Tuesday night in Madison. If the Spartans had lost to Wisconsin, this would have been their first loss in which they played well throughout. Instead, the 67-59 win ought to remind them and future opponents why they were so revered — and perhaps feared — in January. 

Tom Izzo described MSU’s relentless, intelligent, trusting and determined effort in one all-encompassing poetic phrase: “We played our asses off,” he said.

MSU is also longer and quicker than the Badgers, with a clear edge at point guard. So there’s that, too. That isn’t always enough at the Kohl Center, against a Wisconsin squad that features the dancing feet and sleight of hand of center Ethan Happ. 

“This could be … if we get back to what we do …” Izzo continued, fumbling to put the night in perspective. “Our defense was good, our rebounding was better, our break was better. I think we’re executing better. I thought we executed pretty well offensively the whole night.” 

As Izzo chatted outside the coaches’ locker room, David Thomas, MSU basketball’s director of operations, approached Izzo and told him that Michigan was losing at Penn State and that John Beilein had just been ejected.

“Beilein got kicked out of the game?” Izzo said, processing the news.

MSU won one road game Tuesday night and wound up back tied for first place in the Big Ten with Michigan, each at 11-3, a half-game up on Purdue. The Wolverines and Boilermakers both lost on the road Tuesday. Everything the Spartans ever wanted is within their control again, other than perhaps a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Right now, though, standings and seeding is less important to MSU than being right again. This MSU team, more than any in a while, needs to get out of the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. This program needs to taste a Sweet 16 again. It’s been a minute.

It could use at least split with Michigan. Its stars, Cassius Winston and Nick Ward, have demons to exorcise against the Wolverines. Whatever the standings say is secondary. MSU won the Big Ten last year. Michigan suffocated the Spartans twice and reached the NCAA tournament final. MSU lost to Syracuse in the second round. Who’s year is recalled fondly? Rhetorical question. Sorry. 

Tuesday night’s win at Wisconsin was significant for MSU largely because of how it looked. How MSU looked, win or lose, frankly. If Happ hits all six free throws instead of going 0-for-6 from the line and MSU misses a shot somewhere late and falls, it’s essentially the same MSU performance — a will-imposing and disciplined effort. 

MSU won without a 15-0 run, but instead with consistency. It won with connectivity on both ends. The best that’s looked in a while.

“We trusted the scouting report,” Winston said. “We made the decision to guard Happ one-on-one. Tried to take away the 3-point shots. So we stayed glued to our guys (on the perimeter) and we trusted our scouting report.”

Happ scored 20 points, hit 10 shots, hauled in 12 rebounds. And the Spartans got exactly what they wanted from him. He also turned the ball over six times and assisted on just one bucket over the final 30 minutes. The Badgers’ primary playmaker only made plays for himself and had to work for those, with Ward shadowing his moves without falling for Happ’s pump-fakes and quick-stepping changes of direction.

“You want to jump at everything,” Ward said. “But watching film and having experience playing him, I just follow with his steps.”

“We took the chance in not doubling Happ,” Izzo said. “After (those guards) hit two of their first four shots, then it really got ugly.”

Ugly for Wisconsin, that is. The Badgers’ backcourt of Brad Davison and D’Mitrik Trice finished a combined 4-for-18 shooting.

“We trusted Nick one-on-one with Happ,” Winston said. “We trusted X (Xavier Tillman) one-on-one with him.”

I think it was Ward’s best game of the season, despite modest stats — 12 points, six rebounds, three blocks, two assists — because of his defense and offensive awareness. His block and assist numbers were both season highs for Big Ten play. And they weren’t empty stats. He protected the rim, he found teammates, making one notable read on a crosscourt pass that led to an open 3.

On the other side of the ball, he ran. MSU ran. Against Wisconsin. Few teams run successfully against the Badgers, who get back defensively with at least four defenders as a matter of philosophy and preservation. 

MSU’s 13 fast-break points only partly explain the uncomfortable pace the Spartans created for Wisconsin, primarily in the first half. That, in turn, created a looseness and level of comfort offensively for the Spartans all night. MSU scored regularly without having to set the offense, even if sometimes not technically in transition. 

The Spartans’ first three fast breaks came in a four-possession sequence, with MSU scoring in three seconds and then in less than two seconds on consecutive trips down the floor.

The Badgers weren’t as committed to getting back as MSU was to beating them down the court. I don’t think Wisconsin had seen a team attack so relentlessly in transition, so willing to persist with the slightest edge or angle. Wisconsin seemed especially caught off guard on MSU’s fast breaks that came after a Badgers made bucket.

This wasn’t MSU racing up and down the court against Iowa, which enjoys that game, even if sometimes to its detriment. This was an opponent planning to take that away from the Spartans and finding it difficult to do. 

That’s critical to the rest of this MSU season. Not just the fast break. But having the discipline and persistence to create advantages. Sometimes that’s just Ward taking on a challenge defensively in the post, allowing the best-laid plans to work around him.

The Spartans were connected Tuesday. And poised in an environment where it’s easy to lose it. You know it when you see it with this team. It’s their only chance to be great.

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Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.