Indiana welcomes No. 11 Michigan State into Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Thursday after defeating the Spartans in both games last season.

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There are four teams in the Big Ten with a 14-4 record or better, and Indiana and Big Ten-leading Michigan State are two of them.

While the Spartans lead the Big Ten with a 6-1 conference record, the Spartans haven’t necessarily escaped the vortex of playing on the road within the conference schedule yet. Michigan State has played two true road games in the Big Ten – a win against Northwestern in mid-December and a 29-point loss to Purdue last week.

It doesn’t get easier for Michigan State on the road Thursday evening either, as the No. 11 Spartans travel to Bloomington, where Indiana has defeated four consecutive ranked teams, including beating Florida State by 16 in December and contributing to Ohio State’s slide out of the top-25.

“They're a team that has championship aspirations, and, having some time before they come in here, I'm sure they will be prepared and ready,” Indiana head coach Archie Miller said. “But for our guys, it's another opportunity at home in the Big Ten against a great opponent. And hopefully the environment is electric and we compete, because that's what it's going to come down to in terms of our effort level. You're not going to be perfect against this team, but you're going to have to control what you can.”

This is a setup for revenge on behalf of Michigan State. The Spartans would love to beat Indiana in Bloomington to avenge their performances against the Hoosiers in 2018-19, when Indiana beat Michigan State in Bloomington and in East Lansing.

“Indiana is a team that beat us twice,” Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo told the media Tuesday. “Revenge, it doesn't seem to be as powerful in the new millennial way of looking at things. It is for me, but the NCAA won't let me play.”

Whether that revenge mantra rings true for Michigan State is yet to be seen. Of its top-nine contributors on the roster, Michigan State plays seven freshmen and sophomores. Indiana is in a similar place. These two teams aren’t the same teams that played last season.

Regardless, the target on Indiana’s back is big Thursday, as Michigan State looks to put its big road loss to Purdue as far into the past as possible, and that’s not necessarily a position Indiana is used to with this particular team. Fending off a Nebraska team seeking revenge in Lincoln is drastically different than fending off a Michigan State team with a history that not many key contributors have played through.

Trayce Jacskon-Davis has commanded much of the star power in Indiana’s conference matchups this season, but Cassius Winston is as big a star as the Big Ten has in 2019-20. So far this season, Winston has shouldered much of the offensive load, scoring 18.1 points per game. The only other player to average double-digit scoring for Michigan State is Xavier Tillman, who also averages 10 rebounds per game.

Most NBA mock drafts have Winston being selected late in the Second Round in 2020, along with guards Indiana has already faced, like Arkansas’ Isaiah Joe and Nebraska’s Cam Mack.

Potential NBA-caliber guards aren’t something new to this Indiana team, but NBA potential paired with experience, talent around him and a history is something new. In the last two seasons, Winston has played Indiana four times. In those games, he’s shot 49 percent from the floor for an average of 15.8 points per game. He also added 8.3 assists and 4.5 rebounds.

Archie Miller has called Winston the Big Ten’s “premier point guard” for good reason. Without Winston, and with the absence of Joshua Langford, Michigan State’s offense wouldn’t run.

Winston is coming into Thursday’s game struggling, though, as he committed 14 turnovers in the last two games and scored just 16 points.

Having players like Winston and Aaron Henry in the backcourt, it leaves opportunities open for the frontcourt contributors inside. Xavier Tillman averages a double-double, and Gabe Brown is among the best offensive contributors in the nation within his usage bracket. Malik Hall and Marcus Bingham add to the very deep frontcourt Michigan State employs.

“This is the one that you're looking at the most,” Archie Miller said Wednesday. “Our frontcourt's going to have to step up and play a true frontcourt game.”

Miller said he thought against Nebraska, Trayce Jackson-Davis had his best game of guarding the perimeter while maintaining a presence inside with his length, and Joey Brunk has been “that other guy” on the inside lately, averaging 9.1 points and 9.6 rebounds per game since the Crossroads Classic.

Of course, to play a true frontcourt game, there will need to be more flashes of what the frontcourt provided at Nebraska than what it provided against Rutgers and, sometimes, against Ohio State, when a tired Indiana frontcourt looked vulnerable against fresh legs off the bench.

One of the most definitive ways to watch Indiana battle its inexperience is to watch the production on defense. Archie Miller mentioned on his radio show Monday that his team’s defense went from “bad” in November, to “average” in December and is still continuing to improve, even as recently as the loss at Maryland. When asked about that Wednesday, Miller noted the “newness” of the team early in the season, as well as the team’s effort to move away from the 11-man rotation recently.

But getting away from that inexperience has been big for Indiana. Since that Maryland game, the defense has allowed 62.2 points per game on 42.8-percent shooting from the field.

“We have gotten better, gradually, I think week-to-week, which is important,” Miller said. “It's not a game-to-game thing. It's a week-to-week thing that we continue to improve in certain areas. And I think here in the last week and a half or whatnot, we have shown some signs of getting some carry-over.”

Michigan State is also more inexperienced than it was a season ago, as Winston, Tillman and Aaron Henry represent the most experienced players to have played significant roles against Indiana in 2018-19.

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