Michigan State Basketball: 5 takeaways from runaway win over Purdue

Michigan State basketball remained on fire Tuesday night, pulling away from Purdue with a 77-59 victory. What’d we learn?

At one point on Tuesday night, it looked like the Spartans might be in trouble. Carsen Edwards hit a big 3-pointer to draw the Boilermakers within four points in the second half and Purdue was getting hot, but Michigan State’s defense shut the door and finished the game on a 25-11 run to win, 77-59.

Tom Izzo was very blunt after the game when talking to a Big Ten Network reporter about whether or not his team improved in the win, saying ‘no’ emphatically.

Still, the Spartans managed to record their fourth double-digit Big Ten win of the season to improve to 14-2 overall and 5-0 in conference action.

Michigan State earned its fifth straight Big Ten win of the season. What’d we learn from Tuesday night’s runaway victory?

5. Foster Loyer needs to play more minutes

This isn’t me praising Foster Loyer for the work he’s done in his freshman season, although he has improved since the beginning of the year, but rather it’s stating that he must see the court more in order to give Cassius Winston a breather, or two, each game.

Loyer played just three minutes on Tuesday night while Winston played the rest of the way and you could tell the junior point guard was gassed as he had his most turnovers since Big Ten play began.

If Michigan State is going to make a deep run in March, it’ll need Loyer to play about 10-12 minutes per game so Winston can stick to about 28-30.

More Cassius isn’t a bad thing, but the Spartans will need more Loyer in order to preserve Winston for the most crucial stretches of the season.