But not once had it won five straight games to begin conference play. Even the legendary 1999-2000 team, which featured two players — Mateen Cleaves and Morris Peterson — who have had their jersey’s retired could make that claim. That was until last weekend.

The No. 7 Spartans (15-2 overall, 5-0 Big Ten) defeated Illinois (15-3, 3-2) on Saturday, remaining perfect in conference play and extending their home winning streak to 28 games in the process.

The last time MSU boasted a perfect conference record this late into the season was in 1977-78, when a man named Earvin “Magic” Johnson was behind the wheel. That year, the Spartans started 7-0 and won the Big Ten before eventually flaming out in the third round of the NCAA Tournament.

“Right now I think we’re playing some good basketball,” sophomore guard Kalin Lucas said. “We’re just trying to take it one game at a time.”

As simple and cliché as that sounds, the “one game at a time” mantra was something this team did not practice the past few seasons. Rather, the Spartans jogged through the conference schedule at half-speed, knowing that at the very least, their sheer talent would win them enough games to land them a five- or six-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The apathy with which they would play in December, January and February was a result of their historically impressive results in March. Three straight Final Fours between 1999-2001 produced enormously high expectations and created the illusion that nothing other than National Championships and Final Four berths mattered.

But before the start of the season, there was a refreshing feeling that this team had renewed its commitment to winning Big Ten titles.

Maybe it was because of the candor with which the seniors spoke about not wanting to become the first Tom Izzo-led class to never win a conference title or earn a trip to the Final Four, but there was a definite sense that the team was sick of beginning every season without first adding a new banner to the Breslin Center ceiling.

Through five games, that attitude has manifested on the court.

“I’m hungry, just like coach is,” senior guard Travis Walton said. “This team wants something that we’ve been missing for a long time, so 5-0 is good, but we’ve got 13 games left — we could go 5-13 — so we’ve just got to stay focused.”

Let’s be clear about something: the 2009 National Championship is still this team’s first priority. Even if it runs the table from here until the championship game of the Big Ten Tournament, it wouldn’t make a loss in the first or second round of the Big Dance any less sufferable.

But for right now, this team is staying focused on the task at hand. The team has realized that it can’t control the results of the Big Dance when the snow hasn’t melted, and that in itself is a big improvement from the past few seasons.

“Easily this can be turned around if we don’t come ready to play, so this isn’t a time to pat yourself on the back, because every team right now in the Big Ten is giving you a different look and coming hard to play,” Walton said. “Of course, you’re supposed to say, ‘We did a good job for the day’ and let everybody else say, ‘(MSU) is doing pretty good,’ but I’m not going to let that go.”

Alex Altman is a State News men’s basketball reporter. He can be reached at altmanal@msu.edu.