Why Tight Win Has Spartans Searching for Answers

Those around the Michigan State men's basketball team exuded confidence heading into another home game against Ohio State on Sunday, riding high off a midweek win over UCLA that appeared to steer the program back in the right direction.

Yet once the teams hit the court, it was anything but smooth sailing. Michigan State couldn't get anything going offensively, starting the game with an errant pass and scoring just nine points in the first 11-plus minutes.

"I feel like we played stagnant for the majority of the game," senior center Carson Cooper said postgame. "We went on a little run to grab the lead, but I don't think the energy was there from our team, myself included. ... If we're going to play a game like that when one of their better guys is hurt or if we're on the road and don't have the Izzone and the home crowd advantage, we're going to get our reality check."

That reality check could be coming quickly as the Spartans finish the season with three of their last four on the road, two of which are against top-10 teams. However, it's much more important that they figure things out before March, because if they don't put forth their best effort, they may be sent home for the season.

Continued Struggles

msu basketbal — Michigan State's Jordan Scott, right, shoots a 3-pointer as Ohio State's Puff Johnson defends during the first half on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, at the Breslin Center in East Lansing. | Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Michigan State's shortcomings have been exposed in recent weeks, right as it got into the toughest stretches of Big Ten play. The Spartans don't shoot well from the outside and have recently struggled to find much offensively when point guard Jeremy Fears isn't on the floor. They're at their best when they play physically and get out on the run, but at the same time, they don't seem to play as well when facing similar challenges from opponents.

MSU held its own in an overtime win over Illinois, but teams like Michigan, Wisconsin, and even Duke in non-conference play appeared overwhelming. In those games, the Spartans struggled to score and keep up with their opponents, which has them scratching their heads as they try to piece everything together for another March run.

"We need to find the why," Fears said. "Why is it happening? Why does it keep happening? At the end of the day, we need to be playing our best basketball now, going into March, going into the Tournament, and going into finishing the season. It's getting close to one-and-done time, whether it's the [Big Ten] Tournament or whether it's March Madness. We want to try to string it together and put some wins and some stops together."

Uncharacteristic Defense

On the other hand, Michigan State has boasted a top-tier defense for the majority of the season, but you wouldn't know that from the way it played in the first half. Ohio State guard Bruce Thornton shredded the Spartans for 32 points, more than half his team's total, with 16 coming in each half. He helped the Buckeyes take a measly 26-23 lead into halftime before Michigan State made its adjustments and put up 43 points in the second half.

"We looked like a team that played like we're going to win anyway, so we'd just do what we want to do, and that was the message at halftime," head coach Tom Izzo said. "You don't get to do that."

Finding the Way Out

Any way you slice it, Sunday's effort and many of the recent performances outside of the UCLA and Illinois games were not good enough for a Michigan State team heading into March. There's a certain standing that comes with this program, and part of that is steady improvement that peaks toward the end of the season, which was nowhere to be found against Ohio State.

"There's a reality to this," Izzo said. "This is the time of year you have to get better every game, and today, we did not get better."

That has to be the goal with the challenges ahead, but it can't just continue to be for a game here and there. If Michigan State wants to make a run this season, it has to perform consistently every night -- much better than it did on Sunday.

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