Michigan State basketball: 3 takeaways from dominant win over Brown

Michigan State basketball got on track against Penn State earlier this week and stayed on track against Brown on Saturday night to improve to 7-4 on the year, right before an 11-day break.

The Spartans finished up with a 68-50 win over Brown that was pretty much sewn up early in the second half and now they’ll get the next week and a half off before playing Oakland on Dec. 21.

This team is starting to come together nicely and piecing together back-to-back wins is a good sign. Brown wasn’t exactly an elite opponent, but the Bears were riding a five-game winning streak and Michigan State shut them down.

What’d we learn from this win?

3. Joey Hauser has added to his game this year

Coming into the year, all we knew about Joey Hauser was that he could be streaky and if he’s not making threes, he’s usually not doing much else offensively. He could make the occasional mid-range jumper, but his game was out at the perimeter.

He’s added a nice inside-out game this year.

On Saturday against Brown, he did much more driving to the hoop and backing down defenders than he ever did a year ago. He looked like a legitimate post threat and finished the game 9-for-13 from the field and had 22 points, surpassing 1,000 for his career.

It’s nice to see that he worked on his overall game this offseason because he looks like a completely different player.