Michigan State basketball: 3 takeaways from loss to No. 10 Illinois

2. The little mistakes piled up

A three-point loss might not seem disappointing, especially when it's to the No. 10 team in the nation on the road, but Michigan State should have won but kept making little mistakes. They piled up and led to the tight defeat in Champaign.

Missed layups, bad fouls, silly turnovers, and poor execution in half-court offense led to this loss and it could've been avoided. Even some missed wide-open 3-point attempts by Tyson Walker and Jaden Akins contributed to these mistakes although that's more of just a missed opportunity.

These mistakes could have been avoided and if the Spartans even made a couple of those layups or avoided the bad fouls or didn't waste 25 seconds of the shot clock before scrambling to run a play with five seconds left, they win this game.

Michigan State needs to clean this stuff up moving forward because it can be one of the better teams in the Big Ten if it plays smart basketball (see the Baylor, Penn State, Indiana State, and Oakland games).