Michigan State basketball’s offense remains red-hot in blowout of Oakland

Michigan State basketball’s offense remained red-hot in a blowout win over Oakland on Friday night. Who stood out in the big win?

Racing out to an early lead, Michigan State never looked back despite a plethora of long-range prayers dropping for Oakland. The Spartans were able to remain red-hot offensively, beating Oakland for the 17th straight time, 99-69.

The Spartans were trying to pull away in the first half, but the Grizzlies kept with the Spartans, making clutch three after clutch three to trim their lead.

Fortunately, Michigan State was able to extend the lead to 30 in the second half and that’s where the game ended. The Spartan defense fared well considering Oakland was a scorching 13-for-23 from the 3-point line. Tom Izzo said after the game he was disappointed with the 3-point defense, but there’s nothing you can do when guys are jacking up off-balance shots from 2-3 behind the line with hands in their face.

Michigan State’s offense, however, was starred on Friday night in front of a relatively quiet Breslin Center crowd with the students at home for winter break.

The Spartans had just seven turnovers compared to 27 assists on 38 made baskets. As you can imagine from that line, Cassius Winston had himself quite the game, two points shy of his career-high, dropping 26 points but he surprisingly had just three assists to one turnover.

Moreover, the Spartans scored 47 points on the fast-break to Oakland’s six and that was due to Winston’s ability to get the ball down the court quickly and find the open man.

Not many teams can run like Michigan State and that was the difference as Oakland was just gassed by the end of the game, getting out-scored 54-37 in the second half.

Nick Ward added 14 points and Josh Langford had 12 as the only other Spartans in double-figures as the team was extremely balanced in the scoring column. In fact, 14 different players scored on Friday night as Michigan State shot 59 percent from the field and 43 percent from behind the 3-point line.

This team continues to get better as the calendar is getting ready to change to 2019 and you have to think the Spartans, at 10-2, are currently exceeding preseason expectations.