How does a team go from the best start in school history to losses against Penn State and Iowa?

If you look at the stat sheets, you see reasons in every instance — turnovers, shooting percentage, foul discrepancies. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s baffling.

And as far as particular players go, it’s been nearly impossible to find a single one who’s consistent night in and night out.

Goran Suton will show flashes of double-double capability and then have a game like he did against Indiana — zero points, one rebound and four turnovers.

Kalin Lucas can silence a Purdue home crowd with a career-high point total but can’t turn it on against Indiana.

Drew Neitzel went through a cold streak, appeared to get hot again and then went M.I.A. against Purdue before leading his team against the Hoosiers.

Raymar Morgan pleased MSU head coach Tom Izzo with his emotion and body language for the first one-third of the season before watching his team-leading point total slowly drop.

On paper, this is one of Izzo’s strongest groups. They’re well-rounded, undefeated at home and have pulled out strong road victories in front of record crowds at Bradley and BYU and took UCLA to the wire.

Heading into Saturday’s loss at Indiana, the Spartans legitimately should have been undefeated.

They were in the position to lock up a win against UCLA and had ample opportunity to squeak out a victory in West Lafayette.

And let’s not even get into the what-ifs about Penn State and Iowa.

But if you look past the hypotheticals and no-brainers, the most important thing is Wednesday’s game against Penn State.

And after that, Iowa comes to town Saturday. Bit by little bit, the Spartans must get back on track.

MSU found itself in a stretch run these last few games against Purdue and Indiana.

After the home stand, they’ll have Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio State — and three of those four on the road. It could be the difference between second and fourth place (or worse) in the Big Ten and any range of seeding for the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.

Either way, it’s crunch time. This MSU team has shown it can compete with the absolute best, and Izzo has said it himself: There isn’t a team out there that he wouldn’t want a shot at when his team is hitting on all cylinders.

Let’s just hope they pull together when they need to.