I doubted a Tom Izzo-led Michigan State team again. When will I learn that this team handles being doubted far better than they do being praised?

It’s not just that I picked Michigan to win. That was defensible. The Wolverines were 4.5-point favorites, playing at home, in front of a raucous Crisler Center that was honoring three different championship teams from yesteryear. Cazzie Russell and Glen Rice were in the house.

I said that MSU was in trouble because they couldn’t win at a slow pace. I was wrong.

Last year, Zavier Simpson and Moe Wagner tortured the Spartans with high ball screens. They did it twice, first on Jan. 13 in East Lansing, then March 3 in New York City. This year, the Spartans out-Michiganed Michigan.

Down 51-45 after an Ignas Brazdeikis dunk with 15:42 remaining that brought the crowd to its feet, the Spartans could have packed it in. The excuses were already there. 

Down two starters. On the road. Rematch in 13 days. 

The whispers were there, too. Izzo’s offense has been considered by some to be anachronistic and stubborn. Cassius Winston had been dominated two straight times by Zavier Simpson, so much so that the lead-up to this game became almost exclusively about the two point guards. Simpson owns Winston, many people thought.

Winston took a sledgehammer to all those narratives, as did MSU's coaching staff. A team that as recently as a week ago barely used any high ball screens all of a sudden was using them on every possession.

“They were hard-trapping me, almost hard-hedging me,” Winston said, of Michigan’s ball-screen coverage. “So, if I just came off and got the ball going, they were in a 4-on-3 situation. Then, just make reads off that.” 

Over and over, Winston made the right reads: a slip to Kenny Goins or Thomas Kithier, a crosscourt pass to Matt McQuaid or Kyle Ahrens, or a hard drive to the bucket. It was masterful.

Michigan coach John Beilein noted postgame that Winston, who was not substituted a single time, “destroyed” his team’s ball screen defense.

In my Friday column, I called the Spartans’ chances of scoring in the half court against Michigan, without Langford and Ward, “slim.” This was an MSU team that had relied so much on its transition offense that I thought, as many did, that they could not win without it.

They scored four fast break points the whole game, but it never felt like it was missing.

Winston, and the team, looked so, so comfortable. Even when it seemed to all outside observers that the Wolverines were making the big run, the Spartans never wavered.

“We just stayed cool, calm, and collected. (The Brazdeikis dunk) was a big play for them, but at the same time, it’s one play,” Xavier Tillman said. "So, you can’t let one play keep letting it travel on and on. It started with (Matt McQuaid), he did a good job of just keeping his cool, keeping his calm, and saying, ‘OK, we’re good.’” 

Experience, as they say, is the greatest teacher.

“We have a great group of veteran players that are tremendous leaders, and they have taken a culture that has been left behind by past really good teams, and just enhanced it. Everybody is buying in,” assistant coach Mike Garland said. 

Izzo was the first to credit his staff for the win, and I would echo that sentiment. They surprised the Wolverines in the first half with aggressive switching, something we’ve never really seen out of an Izzo team. They surprised Michigan in the second half with the ball screen reliance.

They beat Michigan at their own game.

Winston was asked postgame if he enjoyed winning here, at Crisler Center, even more than he would have had it been at home.

“Us against the world,” he said, smiling.