Michigan State Basketball: 3 takeaways from upset loss to Northwestern

1. This may be a major wake-up call for the Spartans

We see this every season with Michigan State. The Spartans will lose a game in ugly fashion or have a poor stretch and they come out on the other end of it stronger than before.

For Michigan State, it hasn’t played a complete game all season and has looked bad for a string of games against teams like Detroit Mercy, Western Michigan and Oakland. After a week of rest, Michigan State probably expected to come out and take care of the Wildcats who haven’t played anyone this season outside off Pitt. That didn’t happen.

For four straight games now, the Spartans looked like they were expecting to win and they played down to their opponents.

This was the perfect wake-up call loss that sometimes Tom Izzo uses as a lesson.

No, Izzo didn’t want to start Big Ten play with a loss like this, but you can bet he’s going to be in the film room for hours with his guys on Monday and it’s not going to be pretty. You can bet these guys won’t be overlooked anymore opponents in the Big Ten.

Time for this team to wake up and play to its potential.