Would they be mature enough to focus on the game at hand and avoid getting caught looking ahead to a matchup with arch-rival Michigan on Tuesday?

It didn’t take long for Izzo to get his answer.

The No. 12 MSU men’s basketball team (20-4 overall, 9-2 Big Ten) produced its most complete performance of the season, taking down Purdue (12-12, 5-6) 78-65 on Saturday behind a career-high 20 points from sophomore guard/forward Branden Dawson.

“I haven’t figured them out yet,” Izzo said of his team. “I’ll figure them out when we get everybody back, when we’re practicing together. I think this was a character win for us, I really do. I thought our guys, in a tough environment, played pretty solid.”

Yet there still remains a lot that even they don’t know.

They know they sit alone in first-place in the Big Ten in a year when the conference is as tough as it’s been in decades.

They know they have the second-best record after 24 games of any team under Izzo.

But they’re still evolving, still trying to learn the right balance to best utilize their combination of perimeter skill and interior strength.

“We haven’t even figured it out yet,” freshman guard Gary Harris said. “We could go so much higher. We have a lot of injuries right now, people trying to get back to 100 percent, so I mean, I feel like we just keep getting better and once we start getting healthy, the sky’s the limit.”

There is a precedent for the heights this team could reach.

Four of Izzo’s five teams that won 20 or more of their first 24 games have made the Final Four.

Yet this team has a unique quality, what Izzo described as “inside/outside ability” that could take it to another level.

“We’re not one-dimensional like a lot of my other teams have been, to be honest with you,” he said.

So although they don’t know exactly where the season will take them, junior guard Keith Appling said there is one thing every one of them does know.

“In the back of our minds I think we all know what this team is capable of with all the talent that we have,” Appling said. “We still feel like we haven’t peaked as a team and there’s still room for improvement. Each and every guy has so much more to give.”

Josh Mansour is The State News’ men’s basketball reporter. He can be reached at mansou13@msu.edu.