Michigan State Basketball: Cassius Winston dominates in Northern Illinois win

Cassius Winston dominated Northern Illinois on the way to a big Michigan State basketball win over Northern Illinois. His hot season continues.

Since struggling a bit offensively against Florida, Cassius Winston has been red-hot. The junior point guard has pieced together his best stretch of games in his career, averaging 22.0 points and 7.3 assists during that span. Against Northern Illinois, he remained hot, scoring a game-high 24 points to go along with seven assists and no turnovers.

Is there a player in the Big Ten as hot as Winston right now? It’s hard to say, but he got the Spartans up early with a barrage of 3-pointers and he finished 6-of-7 from deep and 8-for-10 from the field.

Winston is playing incredible basketball as he couldn’t seem to miss and he’s now shooting 66 percent from the floor and 63 percent from beyond the arc in the past three games. He truly looks like the latest Spartan All-American and could be one of the best point guards in America.

It was a bittersweet win for Tom Izzo as he faced his former assistant coach Mark Montgomery who he admitted he wasn’t looking forward to playing. He doesn’t like showing up his former assistants, but he can be content with the 28-point win, nonetheless.

Michigan State’s offense was scorching-hot yet again, shooting 50 percent from the floor and 48 percent from long range. They had 25 assists on 29 made field goals.

The Spartans found a way to win big to end non-conference play with an 11-2 overall record even without Nick Ward playing his best game. He was getting mugged in the post all day and shot just 2-for-6 from the floor but made 7-of-10 free throws to account for 11 points.

This team is playing at a high level right now and Northwestern is next up on Jan. 2 to resume Big Ten play.

With Winston playing the best basketball of his career, the Spartans are a runaway freight train.