The Michigan State Spartans went into Madison and knocked off the Wisconsin Badgers by a 68-63 final score to clinch the outright Big Ten regular season title on Sunday afternoon.
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The Spartans had already clinched at least a share of the championship with an 81-61 victory over Illinois on Tuesday night in East Lansing at Breslin Center.
The conference title is the first for Michigan State in the last six years, with their last regular season crown coming back in 2012. That year, they shared the title with rivals Michigan and Ohio State. Their last outright title was nine years ago, back in 2009. That team made it to the final four in Detroit, and advanced to the National Championship game before being defeated by North Carolina.
Cassius Winston led the charge today for the 2nd-ranked Spartans, scoring 20 points and connecting on all six of his three-point attempts. Nick Ward added 14 and Jaren Jackson Jr. chipped in with 11.
Miles Bridges had himself a quiet day, scoring just 10 points.
Bridges has been in the news the last couple of days for the wrong reasons, being named in a Yahoo sports article by Pat Forde on Friday morning. The article was referring to an FBI investigation into corruption in college basketball. Bridges’ mother allegedly received about $470 worth of benefits from Christian Dawkins after Bridges committed to Michigan State.
Interim athletic director Bill Beekman led an internal investigation into this, and reported his findings to the NCAA, who quickly cleared Bridges to play yesterday. It was announced that Bridges would be able to play in today’s game, and also moving forward.
The win improves the Spartans’ record to 28-3 on the year, and 16-2 in the Big Ten. The Spartans are currently riding a 12-game winning streak and haven’t lost since January 13 when they fell on their home floor against the Wolverines.
This was their regular season finale, and they now move on to the Big Ten tournament next week in New York. This victory also allowed Michigan State to claim the No. 1 seed in the tournament, where they won’t play until Friday.
In a season filled with turmoil off the court stemming from the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, the ESPN Outside the Lines report, and now recently the Bridges’ questioned involvement into corruption in college basketball, the Spartans managed to stick together on the court and capture the regular season conference title. Now it’s time to see if they can keep it up when it matters most – in March.
