Michigan State basketball: 3 takeaways from first Big Ten win over Penn State

1. This feels like a vintage Tom Izzo team

Through the first nine game of the season, this felt like a really off-brand Michigan State team. It did not have the feel of a normal Tom Izzo-coached team.

Over the last five games, it feels like this is a vintage Izzo team again.

Michigan State looks like a completely different team lately. The Spartans are one of the hottest shooting teams in the country over the past month, they are dominating everyone in their path, and they're defending at a high level. Sure, the second-half defense has been mediocre, at best, but we've seen extreme levels of "back" exuding from this team lately.

The Spartans have been winning by wide margins in the past five games as well which has been a nice sight considering they had been struggling to get off to good starts earlier in the year.

We're starting to see the team that was ranked No. 4 in the country to start the season and who everyone saw playing in a Final Four at the end of the year.