EAST LANSING – On a snowy Thursday night in January 2011, five Michigan State students filed into the front row of the Breslin Center and — quite unceremoniously — removed their shirts.

There it was, spelled out clearly in flesh and body paint: 1,181.

That’s exactly how many days had passed from the time a Michigan football or men's basketball team had beaten Michigan State. A striking number. But the reality was, Michigan State’s basketball dominance over its in-state rival at that time extended much further.

“Every time we played them, we had that type of swag that we knew we were going to beat them,” said Delvon Roe, a Michigan State forward from 2007-11. “We were going to dominate for 40 minutes of the game.”

From 1998 to 2011, the Spartans had won 18 of 21 meetings — 15 of those victories coming by double digits. The streak included 11 consecutive Michigan losses at the Breslin Center dating back to 1997, a span of four Wolverines coaches.

“From a wins perspective, Michigan was definitely not even close to Michigan State, if we’re just being honest,” said Jon Horford, a former Grand Ledge star who was a Wolverines forward from 2010-14. “Tom Izzo had Big Ten championships and a national championship and Final Four runs. Michigan had struggled to be relevant. … There were games where we literally had no one in the stands.”

Flash forward to Sunday.

Michigan and Michigan State are today both ranked inside the AP’s top 10, locked in a three-team race atop the Big Ten standings with Purdue. The Spartans and Wolverines will meet twice over the next two weeks in a pair of highly anticipated matchups that could determine who wins the conference title.

In their last 14 meetings since 2012, each team has won seven times. In that span, each team has won or shared two Big Ten regular-season titles and they have combined for five league tournament championships.

To understand how the rivalry got to this point, go back to that snowy night in 2011 — a game that changed the course of two seasons, a game that helped cool the temperature of one coach’s hot seat and a game that began to reshape the power balance in the Big Ten.

“Look at the record before and after that win for Michigan basketball,” Zack Novak, a Michigan guard from 2008 to 2012, said. “It really is like the one thing you can point to and say everything changed.”

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A tipping point in 2010

To understand the depths of the divide and just how lopsided the rivalry became, go back to a somber Crisler Center locker room in 2010.

Michigan, in the midst of another non-tournament season, had scrapped within a single point and a controversial final call of knocking off then-No. 5 Michigan State. The Wolverines had the ball down by one point with 3.5 seconds left. Coach John Beilein drew up a sideline in-bounds lob play to DeShawn Sims.

“He just blatantly gets fouled,” Novak said. “The guy grabs his jersey. He misses it. We lose.”

After the game, following media obligations and post-game pep talks, Novak and Beilein lingered behind, the final two stragglers in the locker room.

“Coach B is a very mild-mannered guy,” Novak said. “He’s usually very educational and doesn’t get fired up too much. He looks at me and he goes, ‘These guys are never coming in here and (expletive) winning again.’ He had this look in his face like he was not kidding.’ ”

The Spartans went on to their second straight Final Four. The Wolverines, again, ended the year without a postseason appearance.

As the 2010-11 season rolled around, speculation about Beilein’s job security began to swirl. The coach had posted just one NCAA Tournament appearance and hadn’t finished better than seventh in the Big Ten standings in his first three years.

When the pivotal meeting in East Lansing rolled around, Beilein’s career record at Michigan was a less-than-average 57-62. Even worse, the Wolverines had lost six straight Big Ten games, including seven of their first eight in conference play.

The hot-seat talk began to approach its boiling point.

“You definitely hear things. In hindsight, it was understandable,” Novak said. “It looked like we were going to follow up a non-NIT year with another non-NIT year with a young team and no hope in sight.”

After the sixth straight loss, the Wolverines called a players-only meeting to clear the air. Finger-pointing that plagued the early-season woes gave way to frank discussions about where the season was heading.

“We were like, this is either going to go one of two ways,” Stu Douglass, a Michigan guard from 2008 to 2012, said. “We’re either going to turn it around and make the tournament or we’re going to keep going like we’re going now and be completely forgotten and humiliated.”

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Late arrival: 'I think it just relaxed us'

The day of the game, the Wolverines boarded the team bus for what was supposed to be an hour-long drive northwest to East Lansing.

January in the Mitten State had other ideas. A wintry mix of snow, rain and fog delayed the travel. By the time the Wolverines arrived, tipoff loomed less than an hour away.

“In hindsight, I think that was the best thing that happened to us,” Novak said. “It kind of changed our routine. I think it just relaxed us.”

The early moments took the shape of a classic Big Ten game. Physical. Intense. Low scoring. The Spartans led, 16-11, just under eight minutes in.

“The thing with Michigan State is, they try to punk you right away,” Horford said. “They try to bully you. They try to get in your head. They try to intimidate you. You have to punch them in the mouth. You have to not back down.”

With just over 12 minutes left in the half, Novak swished a 3-pointer. And another. And another. The senior guard went on to hit four 3-pointers in the first half alone and proceeded to tie a career high with six deep balls in the game.

“I had Delvon Roe guarding me. I think at this point, his knees were basically gone,” said Novak about the former Spartan who had endured multiple knee injuries. “There’s got to be some benefit to playing a 6-2 guy at the power forward position in the Big Ten. That was the benefit. I was just running him off screens and getting good looks.”

The Wolverines clung to a slim 24-20 lead when a loose ball bounced just outside the reach of Douglass. On the sideline, Novak lost his mind. He stomped his feet and violently shook his hands in a team huddle – a signature moment of his career that is now known in Michigan circles as the “Aneurysm of Leadership.”

“It’s funny going back to that now,” Novak said. “You see Colton Christian throws a towel at my mouth just because he knows that it’s on national TV and just about every other word I’m saying is not family friendly.”

By the time Novak hit his sixth 3-pointer with just over seven minutes left in the game, the Wolverines had stretched their lead to 13 points.

But then Michigan State made its run. Draymond Green nailed a 3. Kalin Lucas hit a pair of free throws and started dishing out assists. The senior guard scored five straight points to pull the Spartans within two with 1:50 remaining.

With just under a minute remaining, MSU freshman Keith Appling launched a 3-pointer from the wing that would have given the Spartans the lead. It rimmed out. Michigan called a timeout with 34 seconds left to dial up one last play.

In the timeout, Beilein drew up a ball screen to Darius Morris. But out of the timeout, Douglass pulled Novak aside and – on the back of his hand – drew up a plan away from the ball.

When the Wolverines inbounded the ball, Douglass ran to set a screen for Novak. The Spartans switched. Green stayed in the paint and Douglass’ man went to cover Novak, leaving Douglass open on the wing.

Douglass caught the pass and let it fly.

“When Stu Douglass hit the shot to really seal the deal, Colton Christian got so excited that he pulled off his shirt,” Horford said. “You can see on the (TV broadcast), there's a shot of the bench and Colton Christian has his shirt pulled up almost over his head just jumping up and down.”

Before the game, Novak pointed out that a Michigan State student had printed a massive photo of Douglass’ girlfriend dressed up for Halloween.

“I was like, ‘Stu, they’re going after your girl. You better get them,’ ” Novak said. “I guess he got the last laugh.”

Changed landscape

The Wolverines won, 61-57, snapping the Breslin streak.

The victory provided the springboard Michigan needed, winning eight of its final 11 regular-season games to make the NCAA Tournament. That late-season push included a 70-63 victory over the Spartans in the regular-season finale.

Only years later would the players fully understand the magnitude of the game in East Lansing – and Douglass’ game-clinching shot.

“At our banquet, coach Bacari Alexander joked that the shot that I hit saved their jobs,” Douglass said. “I thought it was completely out of left field joke. But apparently, it wasn’t.”

That hot seat talk? Well, let’s say it’s died down.

Beilein has gone on to become Michigan’s all-time winningest coach, leading the Wolverines to a pair of Big Ten titles, two league tournament crowns, seven NCAA tournament appearances in eight years and two national championship game appearances.

His success in recruiting, developing players and game-planning has helped level the scales of the rivalry. That 2011 victory in Breslin started a run of six wins in the next eight games in the rivalry for U-M

Going into Sunday, Michigan has won three in a row in the series dating back to Jan 29, 2017. Count it up. That’s a stretch of 756 days.

But maybe it’s best not to broadcast that number with body paint.

“That’s the biggest risk with talking trash,” Douglass said. “You can look really stupid. If it’s painted on your chest, you can look even dumber.”

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Contact Mike DeFabo at mdefabo@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikeDeFabo.