Not shooting the ball well through the first half, Michigan State basketball needed yet another herculean effort in the second half to take down a fourth straight ranked team.
It got just that, holding Wisconsin to just two points in the final four-ish, minutes to finish with a 71-62 win in East Lansing, improving to 24-5 overall and sliding back into first place by a half-game with Michigan getting set to take on Illinois in Ann Arbor on Sunday evening.
Michigan State's python-like squeezing of life out of opponents in the final five minutes continued as Michigan State went on a 9-2 run to end the game.
What'd we learn?
1. Jaxon Kohler is a menace on the boards
No one tries harder to corral rebounds than Jaxon Kohler and for that reason, he should be the primary big moving forward -- and he really has been.
Kohler grabbed a season-high 16 rebounds to go along with 10 points. He actually didn't play that well offensively, missing some bunnies and wide-open threes, but he made up for that with hustle on the defensive end and on the boards. I was more impressed with him than any big man on the floor on Sunday afternoon.
2. Jase Richardson's impact goes far beyond scoring
Jase Richardson picked up two early fouls on Sunday and played just five minutes in the first half and we saw the offense become a little stagnant while he was on the bench. But it wasn't just the offense that suffered, it was the defense, too.
Richardson's impact can be felt on both ends of the floor and he's not just a scorer, he can defend at a high level and he found teammates for big buckets late in the game. Plus, his steal in the final minutes that led to a fast-break layup for Kohler was the nail in the coffin.
Seeing Richardson put on a clinic without scoring a ton was fun.
3. Possibly the most impressive stretch of any team all year
Sure, Auburn has pieced together some impressive stretches this season and the same goes for Duke, but no team has faced five straight Quad 1 opponents and cleared each of them.
The Spartans lost to Indiana a couple of weeks ago and all seemed lost, but all they did was go to Champaign and beat a strong Illinois team by 14. They then beat Purdue by nine, Michigan by 13, Maryland at the buzzer, and Wisconsin by nine. This team is making statements left and right and there's a reason some believe they'll be in line for a 1-seed.
Beating Oregon before losing to Indiana and then reeling off five straight Quad 1 wins with four ranked victories in that stretch might just be the most impressive stretch of the year and one of the best in Tom Izzo's career.
BONUS: Welcome back, Jaden Akins
While he didn't exactly "shoot the lights out" of the ball on Sunday afternoon, he got back on track with his best stretch of the season in which he scored 11 points in just a couple of minutes.
If Michigan State can get this form of Akins back for a postseason run, it might not end first or second weekend. A confident Akins could be the difference between a Sweet 16 berth and a Final Four run and that was refreshing to see against Wisconsin as he scored 19 points.