Michigan State Basketball: 5 keys to beating No. 7 Michigan on the road

4. Get more production off the bench

The Wolverines don’t exactly dive deep into their bench, but that’s where the difference in this one could come from. Michigan State hasn’t dug into its bench as much as Tom Izzo has promised but if the Spartans want to win on Sunday afternoon in Ann Arbor, they must score 15-20 points off the bench.

Kyle Ahrens (assuming he’s healthy), Gabe Brown, Thomas Kithier, Foster Loyer and Marcus Bingham Jr. all need to combine to have decent games off the bench and break double-digits in the scoring column — unlike the two points they combined to score against Rutgers.

Michigan’s bench goes about two deep, and sometimes a stray third, but that needs to be taken advantage of by the Spartans.

Out-scoring Michigan’s bench is one thing, but putting up 15-20 and holding the Wolverines to about 5-10 from the reserves would be huge and would take a load of pressure off the starting five.

When you’re getting 15-20 points you otherwise didn’t expect from your reserves, confidence starts to build and you play more relaxed basketball.