Michigan State basketball dominates Minnesota to advance to Sweet 16

From start to finish, Michigan State basketball dominated Minnesota to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2014-15.

You can bet Tom Izzo was thinking about the lack of Sweet 16s in the past three years heading into Saturday night’s game against Minnesota, but Michigan State didn’t show any signs of tightness, smacking the Golden Gophers, 70-50.

With the win, the Spartans advance to play No. 3 seed LSU on Friday night with a chance to make the Elite Eight for the first since since that 2014-15 season when they also reached the Final Four.

The Spartans dominated from the opening whistle and after taking an 11-2 lead in the first few minutes, it never got closer than that. They held a 14-point lead at halftime and Minnesota cut it to nine, but when the crowd back into it, Cassius Winston put the team on his back and put together a 7-0 run of his own.

He finished with 13 points and nine assists and was getting teammates involved more than looking for his own shot.

Michigan State turned the ball over 22 times, though, which would usually cost a team a win, but the Spartans found a way to hold a 15-plus point lead from start to finish.

If the Spartans cut those turnovers in half, this 20-point win would have been more like 30 or 40 points.

After torching the nets in the opening game against Louisville, the Gophers couldn’t get anything to go against the Spartans’ defense, shooting 18-for-59 from the floor and 2-for-22 from beyond the arc.

Xavier Tillman had a solid game with 14 points and six rebounds but the real story was Aaron Henry’s performance after the controversial interaction with Tom Izzo as he had nine points and nine rebounds with just one turnover.

Michigan State looked like a team poised to shut out the doubters and sped right past the Golden Gophers, looking to keep that momentum on Friday against LSU. It’ll get a nice six-day break after playing five games in 10 days — winning all five.