“Every time you play Michigan State they’re going to be tough and they’re going to play defense and they rebound the basketball with the best of them,” Purdue’s guard Chris Kramer said after the game.

“So we needed to come out and just match their toughness and just take as much as we could. Simply by rebounding the basketball and getting the loose balls when they were there. I think we felt like of the 50/50 plays, Purdue got all those balls.”

That last sentence is Tuesday’s game in a nutshell. The fact that Purdue won Tuesday’s game isn’t a shocker. The Boilermakers were the preseason favorite to win the league and, with a talented roster finally nearing full health and some stability, they are peaking at the right time.

But how they beat MSU, by getting all those loose balls and playing with more energy, is what disappointed the Spartans the most.

“They wanted it a little bit more, so they came at us, they attacked us and they were just more physical than us,” senior guard Travis Walton said. “It ain’t that we lost, it’s how we lost.”

Even with the fiery attitude of Walton and the calming presence of senior center Goran Suton, a lack of leadership and passion has driven MSU head coach Tom Izzo crazy this season. After home losses to Northwestern and Penn State, Izzo said a coach can’t instill the will to win in a player, it’s something that comes from within. As he then said, in today’s AAU era, players are accustomed to having another game on the horizon and a loss here and there doesn’t make or break a season.

While that’s true, the end of the season is quickly approaching. It’s now crunch time for an MSU program that, for all its accolades and achievements, has not won a Big Ten Championship since 2000-01. With Sunday’s game against Wisconsin, a road trip to Illinois and then the season finale against Purdue at Breslin Center, the toughest tasks lie ahead for the Spartans.

On the same token, it’s important to note the Spartans shot a season-low 32.7 percent from the floor Tuesday. They missed easy layups and open shots and were playing with a fully healthy junior forward Raymar Morgan for the first time in about a month. Just as the Boilermakers dealt with injuries early on and then hit their stride, the Spartans have had to endure countless injuries, not having a practice with their top five guys fully healthy in who knows how long.

There’s only four games left until Purdue comes to East Lansing on March 8, for what will more than likely decide the Big Ten Championship.

It’s now or never for the Spartans to live up to an identity they failed to Tuesday night.