Michigan State Basketball: 3 takeaways from blowout win over Illinois

Michigan State basketball resumed Big Ten play on Thursday night in East Lansing against Illinois. What’d we learn from the first game of 2020?

From start to finish, Michigan State dominated Illinois. The Spartans controlled the pace of play all night, held Kofi Cockburn in check and finished the game off with a 76-56 win over the Illini.

With the win, Michigan State improved to 11-3 on the season and Illinois fell to 9-5. The Spartans are also 3-0 in Big Ten play as the only remaining unbeaten team in the conference heading into Sunday’s showdown with Michigan.

The Spartans are playing well at the right time and a lot of that has to do with shooting as they made 43 percent of their shots and seven threes. They also assists on 20-of-26 made baskets. This team is starting to play like the one we expected in November.

What’d we learn from Thursday night’s Big Ten battle?

3. Rocket Watts is gaining confidence

While it’s clear he’s still not running at full-speed and he isn’t taking people off the dribble as much as he can, Rocket Watts is gaining some confidence as Big Ten play gets underway.

It was tough to judge his performance against Western Michigan because, well, the Broncos aren’t a very good team but he carried over what he did in his first game back into Thursday’s game against Illinois. He only shot 3-for-8 but he had three rebounds and an assist with no turnovers while making some of the shots he had struggled with before his injury set him out.

In fact, that runner that he used to attempt before his injury fell a couple of times on Thursday and you could argue he got fouled, too.

Watts looks calm with the ball in his hands and that’s a huge relief for Tom Izzo because it takes pressure off Cassius Winston.

Don’t look now, Watts is gaining some steam.