Michigan State Basketball: 3 takeaways from blowout win at Nebraska

1. There was finally a legit battle for the team’s third option

Before Thursday night, there was a battle for the No. 3 scoring option on the team, but it was more of an ugly one with no one wanting to step up and take that role.

That all changed against Nebraska.

The previous perceived options were Aaron Henry, Gabe Brown and Rocket Watts, but another name entered the race as Kyle Ahrens proved to be a valuable option off the bench. In fact, he scored 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting in 22 minutes and if he can provide that type of output on a nightly basis, it’s going to be tough to stop this team.

While I don’t believe Ahrens will be able to keep up that pace, an 8-10 point game every now and then would be more than welcomed.

Things, however, did heat up between Henry and Brown. As mentioned before, Brown showed some confidence again which is something that had been missing for the past few weeks. He hits some shots early and didn’t slow down, finishing with 17 points and he added four rebounds.

Henry, on the other hand, had 13 points, nine rebounds, five assists and a steal and even though he had some sloppy turnovers, he was solid all night, showing extreme flashes of what we expected from him at the beginning of the year.

Watts didn’t have a great game, finishing with just three points, four assists and four turnovers on 1-of-8 shooting, but that’s not going to be the norm for him.

The battle for that No. 3 option is heating up at the right time and it looks like Michigan State may have more than just 2-3 guys in the running.