Graham Couch | Lansing State Journal

Graham Couch, Shawn Windsor and Chris Solari, Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING – Cassius Winston moved like an old man in the locker room after Saturday night’s game.

“I know,” he said, chuckling.

You doing alright? I asked.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he replied, in a soft tone that said he knew exactly what I was getting at. “A whole bunch of adrenaline. It was a must-win, so had to get it done.”

That he did. Winston’s remarkable finish in Michigan State’s 75-63 win over Michigan will go down as one of the great closing performances in MSU basketball history.

I don’t believe him when he says he’s not dealing with pain from tendinitis in his knees, specifically his right knee. You could see it in how he labored on the court, and when he winced from time to time. When he insisted that his knees weren’t bothering him — “No, not tonight, not tonight. No, I was good tonight.” — I could see it in his honest eyes, glancing up at me as if to say, “Forgive me. You know I can’t be entirely forthcoming here.”

But I do believe him when he says he can get through it. It’d be foolish not to after what we just witnessed from MSU’s junior point guard, after the consistency of his brilliance over 20 Big Ten games, averaging 19.6 points and a league-best (by far) 7.9 assists. And after those last 10 minutes Saturday night, when a man who should have been wearing down instead danced between and around Wolverine defenders.

Nick King/Lansing State Journal

Saturday night’s MSU win was both an epic culmination of this team’s “footprint” on the program, as Tom Izzo described it, and a moment to pause and catch one’s breath before the truly legacy-defining weeks ahead. That footprint will hold to some degree, regardless of what transpires from here on out, because I don’t think a Spartan fan anywhere — especially those in Breslin Center on Saturday night — will ever forget the feeling this group gave them: Beating Michigan like that, a second time, for a Big Ten championship, the final game of the season.

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Izzo, for one, won’t forget this feeling — not in contrast with last season, not with the magnitude of the situation Saturday, not with what his team has overcome.

“I’m going to enjoy this one like I have not enjoyed any (other),” Izzo said.

All that said: They’ve got to get to at least the second weekend of the NCAA tournament to allow this footprint to truly sink in. This program, and its fan base, are longing for that.

“We’ve got a nice little week before the three games (in the Big Ten tournament),” Winston said. “I should be fully recovered by then. And the (NCAA) tournament’s two games a weekend. After all this, I’m pretty sure I can put together two games a weekend.”

Again, that I don’t doubt.

Nick King/Lansing State Journal

MSU’s players have already begun to think about the NCAA tournament, including Winston. After 20 games against teams who knew them so well, they’re looking forward to facing some fresh meat.

“Just run some offense, some plays, be able to get some cheap easy (buckets), because teams haven’t seen us, they don’t know our personnel,” Winston said. “We’ve got the opportunity to do some really good things.”

“I was thinking about that the other day,” sophomore Xavier Tillman said. “I was wondering, ‘What are (teams) going to do?’ I know teams pick one or two things they’re going to focus on. So maybe like Cassius on ball screens, maybe they’ll trap or something like that. I was thinking, somebody has to do something different. If they let us play how we play, we’re going to be tough to beat. If you let us run in transition, If you don’t crash the boards, and let us run in transition, and if you’re not making shots, we’re going to be really deadly.”

Saturday night showed that again. Beyond that, there is a grit to this team, a poise that’s rarely lost. A versatility defensively that makes them more elite than they sometimes appear. They play for each other — see Kyle Ahrens’ performance Saturday night, ignoring his throbbing back, slapping the floor as he ran back on defense after he landed on it while scoring a basket.

“I saw the look in his eyes,” Tillman said of Ahrens. “He was like, ‘I’m not coming out regardless. I’m doing it for (Matt Mc)Quaid, doing it for Kenny Goins.’ ”

Tillman, too, recognized the perilous situation the Spartans were in when they trailed by 10 early and rescued MSU with his energy and defensive playmaking.

And finally, after struggling for 30 minutes, Winston took over.

“That’s what I do for this team,” he said.

That’s among his roles in this cast of role players.

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Michigan State vs. Michigan men's basketball: Photos from Breslin

There isn’t a matchup that scares Winston in the NCAA tournament, largely because of the versatility of MSU’s defenders. “I don’t think there are a lot of looks we can’t handle,” he said.

Michigan was supposed to be a rough matchup. Zavier Simpson was supposed to be a bad matchup for Winston, personally. Winston scored 11 points in the final 10 minutes, including once driving the ball right at Simpson and scoring over him.

After this season and these last two games against the Wolverines, Winston will go down as one of the all-time greats at MSU. He’s a two-time Big Ten champion. He’ll be Big Ten player of the year in a matter of days. He just led the Spartans to a decisive win over their rival, giving them a share of their second straight Big Ten championship. He’s become a Wolverine-killer. That’s a helluva thing to be known for in MSU lore.

More amazing yet about this performance Saturday — he dazzled over the final 10 minutes while gutting it out on a night he didn’t have the juice in his legs he did two weeks earlier in Ann Arbor.

“The reason he is, to me, the most valuable player in this league is because when it was winning time, he really made some winning plays,” Izzo said. “I’m proud of him, really proud of him.”

Fans are, too, I sense. Grateful for him, more than anything. If you’d seen him hobble to his locker, you’d be even more amazed.

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