Cassius Winston couldn’t help but laugh, which was the last feeling anyone had in Michigan State’s locker room about 15 minutes earlier when head coach Tom Izzo was grilling his team.

“He got after guys. Got after everybody,” Winston said.

So there was Winston on the left wing, the ball in his hands after a fourth straight offensive rebound — the third from freshman Aaron Henry — nourished a possession that will haunt Rutgers on every step of its journey back to Piscataway, New Jersey, and maybe even a day or two after that.

MSU’s junior point guard let out a chuckle in the face of Rutgers’ Peter Kiss. It was a laugh born of disbelief, not disrespect.

Then Winston zipped a pass to senior guard Matt McQuaid, who connected on his second 3-point attempt of the sequence. Breslin Center briefly levitated as the scoreboard changed to read 40-40. And while the remaining 12 minutes and 39 seconds still had to be played by rule, that was the moment MSU won.

“It’s a lot of momentum, it’s a lot of fun. You just feel like you could throw anything at the rim and you’re gonna get it back,” Winston said. “I was gonna shoot a bad 3, that’s why I was laughing. I was gonna shoot it and I was like nah, let me go ahead and pull it out. And then McQuaid hit the shot. It’s just a lot of fun playing that way.”

The decisive 42-second possession started with a deep 3-pointer from Winston with 20 seconds left on the shot clock.

Henry, who had just checked in 10 seconds earlier, barreled toward the basket from the left wing. Winston’s shot bounced off the rim, grazed the backboard and hung in the air until a leaping Henry corralled the ball with both hands over the outstretched arms of Rutgers’ 7-foot center Shaquille Doorson.

Henry pump-faked, angled himself toward the rim and gently put up a soft floater from just beyond the restricted zone. The shot bounced off the front iron, and multiple players batted the ball up in the air. Henry re-secured it to the right of the lane, took a dribble and surveyed the floor with Rutgers’ Montez Mathis on top of him. Henry quickly looked for McQuaid, who was streaking down the right wing, but instead tossed it up top to Winston.

Winston dribbled to the elbow and threw a pass over his left shoulder to a waiting Kenny Goins, who hoisted a 3-pointer. Goins chased down his own miss, which hit the front of the rim, near the top of the 3-point line. He flipped it over to Winston, who hit McQuaid, who misfired a 3-pointer of his own.

Henry nabbed the rebound on the left block over Caleb McConnell and pushed it back out to Winston, who assisted on McQuaid’s tying 3-pointer moments later.

“I shot one of them, and after I shot it I saw Aaron get it,” McQuaid said. “And then I tried to get to 15 to try to get a tip-out or something. Then I saw him get another one, and get another one. I was like ‘Jesus.’ Those were big plays on his part.”

Gotta get at least one of those.



Rutgers is getting outrebounded 34-25 as Steve Pikiell calls a 30-second timeout. pic.twitter.com/wKklVLs4PB — Brian Fonseca (@briannnnf) February 21, 2019

MSU outscored the Scarlet Knights by 11 from that point on. Izzo said that sequence was a direct result of his halftime lambasting.

"I’m getting tired of having to be Knute Rockne at halftime, so we gotta do a better job," Izzo said. "I think we’ll have halftime at the beginning of the game, and then another halftime at halftime."

It’s easy to see flashes of potential with this young Rutgers team, which played six freshmen or sophomores at least 16 minutes Wednesday night. It hasn’t all come together frequently enough, though, for the 12-14 Scarlet Knights.

One thing they do well right now is control the glass. They came into the game ranked first in the Big Ten in offensive rebounds per game and third in rebounding margin. They got out-rebounded by 14 by game’s end, with MSU producing a 14-10 advantage on the offensive glass.

“That’s what they do, so it’s not like we were surprised,” Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said. “We showed them clip after clip after clip of this great rebounding team. We knew at some point in time they were gonna have a stretch like that. … Called a quick timeout after that and tried to settle our guys down, but they were on a little roll then.”

The Spartans had their fun, shared some laughs and got the feel-good win they needed on the heels of indefinitely losing standout forward Nick Ward to a hand injury.

The mood will be completely different by Thursday, when all focus turns to the first meeting with rival Michigan.

“We found a way. Dudes stepped up. Dudes made plays and we found a way to win,” Winston said. “That’s all we can really ask for.”

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