1. Young Bucks - Ohio State has one of the youngest teams in not only the Big Ten, but the country. Ohio State only has one upperclassman that sees significant minutes in junior Marc Loving, who has scored over 20 points in his past three games. Besides Loving, Ohio State has four freshman and three sophomores who play pivotal roles for Ohio State. Ohio State coach Thad Matta said coming into the Big Ten Tournament, his team, besides Loving, had only played a combined 24 minutes in the Big Ten Tournament. With such youth, Matta said he has been preaching to his team the importance of having a short memory.

"The one thing, and I remember talking about it this summer, was we have to act more mature than we probably are," Matta said. "And at times we do and we do a decent job of it; other times we don't. And I was trying to explain to these guys coming in this week coming in that if you hang on to something in this tournament, you're going home. You have to really play forward. And fortunately for us I thought probably the last 24 minutes with the couple of blips in the second half, I thought they did a pretty decent job of that."

2. Ohio State's deadly duo - Freshman guard JaQuan Lyle has been a nice complementary piece to go along with Loving, forming a fearsome duo who have burned MSU for a combined 39 points in Columbus and 35 points in Ohio State's loss in East Lansing. Loving averaged 13.5 points per game through the regular season with Lyle averaging 10.4 points per game. Loving and Lyle each started off the Big Ten Tournament strong also as Loving ended with 24 points, including 13-of-15 at the free throw line, with Lyle recording 22 points in his Big Ten Tournament debut including 6-of-10 from the free throw line as the two combined for more free throws (25) than Penn State's whole team (21). MSU will need to regain its elite defensive form from in order to stop Lyle and Loving as MSU allowed the pair to shoot a combined 47.8 percent in the last matchup between the two teams. 

3. Fighting for an NCAA Tournament bid - Ohio State is 20-12 on the season, including 11-7 in Big Ten play which has Ohio State firmly sitting on the NCAA Tournament bubble. ESPN bracket expert Joe Lunardi currently has Ohio State in his "Next Four Out." Ohio State is only 2-7 against teams currently ranked in the AP Top-25 this season with wins over No. 16 Kentucky and No. 20 Iowa, who has been sliding of late, losing six of its past eight games. That leaves Ohio State still searching for a true signature win over a top team, and a win over No. 2 MSU could go a long way in helping Ohio State burst through its bubble and into the NCAA Tournament.

4. Full-Court Press - MSU has struggled at times this season, specifically against Ohio State last Saturday, with breaking the full-court press. Ohio State's press helped lead to eight Ohio State steals in that game and 13 points off of turnovers. MSU can expect Ohio State's full-court press to be out in full force when the two teams meet Friday night, and it will be up to senior guard Denzel Valentine to help the much more experienced Spartans calmly beat the press and be able to run its offense without turning the ball over. 

5. Tough to win three in a row against a conference opponent - Despite the success MSU has had over the past three seasons in beating a team three times in one season, beating Northwestern three times during the 2013-14 season and Wisconsin three times during the 2011-12 season, the familiarity of a third meeting makes a third win tougher, typically. Not only is it the third game this season for MSU and Ohio State, it is the third time the teams will face off in just 18 days, the shortest span for MSU to face an opponent three times since doing so against Wisconsin in 2007, MSU went 1-2 in that instance. MSU head coach Tom Izzo said during his press conference Monday he knows beating a team three times in a season is never a small task, no matter who the team is. 

“We had to play Wisconsin four times (in the 1999-2000 season) to win the national championship," Izzo said Monday. "That was brutal. Just hard to do. I remember calling NFL guys that had beaten the same team three times in a year, just trying to figure out some way to get an edge on that, when you start going three or four times. When you do it in such a short period of time, if Ohio State wins, it’s difficult."