Michigan State Basketball: Cassius Winston earning national honors he deserves

After being named Big Ten Player of the Year, Cassius Winston made Michigan State basketball proud again with first-team All-American honors.

There’s a reason this Michigan State basketball team is widely considered a favorite in the Tom Izzo era. It’s because of the heart and mental toughness and unwillingness to roll over when times are tough.

The leader of the hard-nosed squad is Cassius Winston, a junior point guard from Detroit who exemplifies the perfect Spartan.

Winston has been ailing for most of the season with knee tendonitis but that hasn’t slowed him down. He’s averaging a career-best 18.9 points to go along with 7.6 assists and even averages a steal per game. His defense has improved, but he just makes everyone around him better on the offensive end without being too careless with the ball.

There was talk about Winston being a Naismith finalist, but he just missed the cut — a controversial misstep by the trophy’s committee.

The Associated Press didn’t mind, though, as it voted the junior a first-team All-American on Tuesday afternoon, making Winston the fourth Spartan under Izzo to earn those honors. He follows Mateen Cleaves, Draymond Green and Denzel Valentine in that regard.

That’s quite a list for the crafty point guard to join and no one is really all that surprised since he’s put the team on his back all season long, especially when Josh Langford was ruled out for the season.

Winston is climbing up the charts of all-time Spartan greats and leading this team to the Final Four has to make him a legend, if he wasn’t already.

Izzo and Winston face their first Final Four together this coming weekend and the Hall of Fame head coach trusts his calm, cool and collected point guard to get the job done. If anyone’s going to lead MSU to a second national title under Izzo, it’s Winston.