And according to his teammate junior forward Aaron Henry, those extra minutes are just a fraction of the hours he spends strengthening his game.

“You always see him in the gym shooting working on his game, but you all are missing a whole bunch of hours that I don’t even get to see that he puts in the gym," Henry said to reporters, as Brown is usually found practicing in the background of the post-game Zoom press conferences. "It’s the little things that he does that makes him the player that he is and that’s why he’ll be successful.”

Brown’s downtime practice paid off in the Spartans 109-91 victory over Oakland Sunday, as the Ypsilanti native put up a career-high 20 points.

And it was a fun game to staple in your career memory book as well. 

Late in the second half, as MSU began to creep away from an Oakland team that had stayed competitive at the start, Brown soared into the air as he cut baseline to slam down an alley-oop pass from freshman guard A.J. Hoggard.

“One thing that I do, that me and my teammates are doing very well, is that I look at them (and) they know when they throw the ball up I’m going to go get it," Brown said. "I do it in practice a lot, so I just give them a certain look and it just happens. Shoutout to A.J. for throwing it that’s one of his very few passes that he has done since he’s been here so I’m just proud that he got to throw it to me.”

Head coach Tom Izzo compared Brown's work ethic to Spartan greats like Miles Bridges, Denzel Valentine and even his current teammate, graduate student forward Joshua Langford. Izzo said that Brown was deserving of the career performance he showed Sunday.

“Coaches can take a little credit, not a lot, Gabe deserves a lot of credit because he’s probably down there (shooting on the court) now, he does that in the mornings, he does that in the afternoons," Izzo said. "He spends a lot of time in this building, a lot of time on his shooting and it’s nice to see him get what he deserves and I thought he did.”

Henry, who followed Brown's lead by contributing 15 points Sunday afternoon, gave similar praise to his teammate.

“Gabe’s my favorite player, honestly," Henry said. "He’s somebody that I always want to see win and he’s somebody that has so much room to grow and he’s came so far.”

The victory against Oakland, as of now, concludes non-conference play for the Spartans this season. Beginning on Dec. 20 the squad will travel to Northwestern to start a Big Ten conference slate that includes six total teams in the AP Top 25.

But for Brown, he'll just keep doing what he has been and that is — always working.

“I just got to keep working, keep maintaining my focus and watching film, I did some things out there that I shouldn’t have done on the defensive end that cause the team to score or certain things to happen," Brown said. "So I have to go back watch film and just prepare for Big Ten play because this is one of the best conferences and you cannot relax on any team so I just got to keep working.”