Spartan Avenue
Fansided

Michigan State Basketball: 5 takeaways from win over No. 3 Purdue

By Connor Muldowney

EAST LANSING, MI - FEBRUARY 10: Miles Bridges #22 of the Michigan State Spartans celebrates his made basket late in the second half against the Purdue Boilermakers at Breslin Center on February 10, 2018 in East Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
EAST LANSING, MI - FEBRUARY 10: Miles Bridges #22 of the Michigan State Spartans celebrates his made basket late in the second half against the Purdue Boilermakers at Breslin Center on February 10, 2018 in East Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 5
Next

Michigan State basketball came away with an important win over No. 3 Purdue on Saturday night. What did we learn from the Spartans’ victory?

Michigan State’s resume had been lacking a signature win heading into the “dog days” of the season, as Tom Izzo called it, and then Purdue came to town.

The Boilermakers presented arguably the toughest challenge for the Spartans all season, outside of Duke, and Michigan State rose to the occasion and shook off a slow start to beat Purdue, 68-65.

It was the third straight close game in Big Ten action, but the win gave the Spartans’ resume a big-time win — it was their third top-10 win of the year (Notre Dame and North Carolina were the others). Will it be enough to vault them to the No. 1 spot in the Week 15 AP rankings?

What’d we learn from the Spartans’ win over Purdue?

5. Matt McQuaid is gaining confidence

Coming off the bench, Matt McQuaid has been a force lately. He’s not the kind of player who will average 10-plus points per game, but he could have a couple breakout games here and there.

Lately, he’s been on fire. This is great news for Michigan State which needs some production from the bench. Over the last four games, he’s averaging 8.8 points and shooting 11-for-17 from the 3-point range. He would have scored 11 points against Purdue if it weren’t for a breakaway dunk being waved off due to a foul call.

McQuaid is starting to gain confidence and the fact that he’s averaging about four 3-point attempts per game gives him a good shot to scored at least six points and find his groove. He’s shooting 40 percent from 3-point range on the season and that comes after a slow start to the year.

Home/Spartans Basketball