"A lot of things to feel good about and a lot of things to feel disappointed about," head coach Tom Izzo said postgame. "I'll get rid of the negatives because I've got a couple excuses for them, but ... they went at us pretty good."

The Broncos only had 10 of their normal 15 players on the roster at the Breslin Center, putting them at a disadvantage from the start.

They have reportedly been struggling with COVID-19 issues. Their last two games, one against Trine University and the other against Notre Dame, were both canceled, making tonight their second appearance of the 2020-21 campaign and under 14th WMU head coach Clayton Bates.

After a rough beginning, where the Spartans seemed to have butter for fingers and no sense of how to get the ball around their opponent and into the basket, things thankfully turned around with an evident energy shift.

From there, the Spartans picked up and held the lead until the end.

"We just played our third game in I think five or six days, we're going to play four in eight days, two of them will be on the road. We did not practice at all. We had walkthroughs and film sessions," Izzo said. "This team can't do that right now, not practicing. We're not Allen Iverson, we're not that good and we really need to cover things."

The spotlight was on sophomore guard, Rocket Watts after he blessed the team with his saving graces Friday night and returned a total of 23 points and four assists to secure the win against Detroit Mercy (0-1).

As a part of the starting five, he played for 25 of the total 40 minutes, racking up and coming off the court at the end of the night with 10 points, going 2-for-4 from the arc and 4-for-9 from the field.

To back him up, redshirt junior forward Joey Hauser, the top rebounder in the last few of the green and white’s matchups, finished with 24 points, going 6-for-10 from the arc and 8-for-14 from the field. He tallied another 10 rebounds, his per game average.

Rounding out the starting five were graduate student guard Joshua Langford and junior forwards Thomas Kithier and Gabe Brown, who added a total of 19 points to MSU’s final score.

Langford didn’t sink his first basket until the first half was almost done.

Junior forward Aaron Henry, who wasn’t allowed to start this game due to a team violation and being late to one of their meetings, remained visible as soon as he stepped off the bench. He counted another 12 points for MSU’s total score, 0-for-4 from the arc and 5-for-13 from the field.

Junior forward Marcus Bingham Jr. added another eight points to MSU’s total score himself.

Izzo said he told the captains – junior guard Foster Loyer, Henry and Langford – that they have to take care of the team during this time and it won't be easy.

Western Michigan sophomore guard B. Artis White led the way for the Broncos, coming out with a total of 19 points and going 3-for-6 from the arc and 5-for-11 from the field.

White was backed up by fellow Broncos sophomore center/power forward Titus Wright, who laid out 16 points respectively.

Broncos senior guard Rafael Cruz Jr. and senior forward Greg Lee combined to add 15 points to WMU’s final score.

Freshman guard Josiah Freeman also added seven points himself.

The Spartans will travel to Virginia to play the No. 15 Cavaliers (3-1) in their sixth game of the season at 9:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 9.

Hauser's brother, Sam, plays for the Cavaliers after transferring from Marquette. So, not only will it be another ranked matchup, but there's going to be more blood on the court.

"I'm extremely excited about it," Hauser said postgame. "(But), I don't want to make it all about me and my brother. ... We're not going down there to play Joey Hauser vs. Sam Hauser. It's Virginia vs. Michigan State. ... (And) it doesn't get much better than (us) – two well respected programs."