Michigan State basketball: 3 reasons Spartans will win at Iowa

1. This team rarely gets fazed on the road

It’s not often that I can say this, but Michigan State doesn’t get rattled on the road too often. Their road losses this season were because of much more than just a hostile environment, but rather long stretches of poor offense with minimal stops on the defensive end. That has been the case at home, at times, this year as well.

Looking at the past road games, there is only one where I believe the environment got the best of the Spartans: at Purdue. And that’s always the case, no matter the Spartan team. Michigan State just does not win at Mackey Arena.

This year’s team is not rattled away from home, though. The Spartans started Big Ten play 2-0 on the road with wins at Penn State and Wisconsin. They then held a nine-point second-half lead at Illinois before Malik Hall got hurt and the game slipped away in the final minutes, held a nine-point early lead against Indiana before crumbling, and led Rutgers by eight before falling apart late.

Michigan State did just win at Ohio State by 21 and then controlled about 30-35 minutes of the Michigan game in Ann Arbor before struggling in the final two minutes.

I think Michigan State will find a way to start strong and finish strong on the road against a quality Big Ten team because they’ve been close to that so many times before.