"That’s just my role on this team, to make a play," Winston said. "They’re making a run, they’re making some things happen, OK, now I gotta make a play for my team."

After falling behind by eight early in the second half, the Spartans unleashed a three-point barrage, first Winston and then senior guard Matt McQuaid. Winston hit three in a row, before turning playmaker and feeding McQuaid for two. Then came the transition buckets, first keyed by Winston and then by his understudy, freshman Foster Loyer. In a blink, MSU turned the game on its head, unraveling a 24-2 run to take a 14-point lead, which never again fell below 11. 

"I think that is having a veteran team. I told them this place would be rocking, and it was," MSU coach Tom Izzo said. "For young guys to handle that, some of our young guys didn’t handle it. But like (senior guard Matt) McQuaid, as bad as I thought he played the first half, not looking for his shot… they buttoned it down in the second half."

Tyler Cook took over in the early portion of the second half, scoring 11 of Iowa’s first 15, simply physically dominating senior forward Kenny Goins, as the Hawkeyes built an eight-point lead. The junior from St Louis, listed at 6-9, 250, established position early and went to work, as the Spartans chose not to help off of three-point shooters. In a rare moment, a raucous Carver-Hawkeye Arena began to believe that they might have a superior physical matchup.

Goins responded, though, limiting Cook’s deep catches during the massive offensive run by the Spartans. After the explosion early in the half, Cook only scored two the rest of the way. 

"We tried to dig a little bit more, and surround him a little bit more, make it a little harder to get it in, put a little more pressure on the ball," Izzo said.

Michigan State got off to a rough start, turning the ball over four times before the first media timeout. They then rattled off nine straight points, appearing to gain control of the game in the middle portion of the first half.

However, a late Hawkeye run keyed by three-point shooting, along with the Spartans missing nine of the final ten shots of the half, gave Iowa a 35-31 lead. 

"A lot of constructive criticism went on at halftime, I’ll call it that," junior forward Nick Ward said. "We weren’t playing good, we weren’t rebounding, we weren’t sticking to our defensive principles, but we just had to pick it up."

 Ward, fresh off a scoreless performance Monday night against Maryland, led MSU in the first half with 10, and finished with 21.

"I had to make up for last game. I tried to stay out foul trouble, tried to play as hard of defense as I can without fouling, but I had to make up for last game," Ward said.

His big man counterpart, 6-11 sophomore Luka Garza, paced the Hawkeyes with 20.

Michigan State heads to Mackey Arena Sunday afternoon for a rematch with Purdue (13-6, 6-2 Big Ten). Iowa travels to Minnesota (14-5, 4-4 Big Ten) the same day.