Indiana vs. Michigan St.: Hoosiers Have Best Game of Season, Rout No. 5 Spartans

Assembly Hall is back to being one of the toughest venues to play in for a visiting opponent in NCAA basketball right now.

The Indiana Hoosiers have beaten a No. 1-ranked team, No. 2-ranked team and just routed the No. 5-ranked Michigan State Spartans—all in Bloomington.

This is the third team that could be a possible one- or two-seed in the NCAA tournament that Indiana has beaten at home this season. What's even scarier is, they're playing at the highest level of the entire season.

Tonight's 70-55 victory was the most dominating performance the Hoosiers have put together this year. It was a complete team effort on both ends of the court, as they exposed Michigan State's weakness of defending penetration to the basket.

Credit Victor Oladipo as the spark that got this Hoosiers team going; he was able to drive by just about anyone he wanted to get past. Oladipo finished with 13 points tonight.

The leading scorer for Indiana was freshman Cody Zeller. He played phenomenally and scored 18 points while only committing one foul. He's finally learning to defend properly, and he's using his offensive ability to get other teams' post players in foul trouble.

Zeller got Michigan State sophomore center Adreian Payne in foul trouble early. Two quick fouls by Payne instantly turned the game in the Hoosiers' favor.

Zeller held Michigan State's big men, Payne and Derrick Nix, to seven combined points.

Outside of Draymond Green, Michigan State had no answer on the offensive end of the court.

Green, however, paced all scorers with 29 points on 10-for-17 shooting and had eight rebounds. The rest of the team was a combined 10-for-34 from the field.

The Hoosiers, on the contrary, shot 47 percent from the field and 45 percent from behind the arc.

Both teams had 16 fouls apiece.

Indiana just did a better job on the defensive end and had 10 steals. The Hoosiers played their game and forced the Spartans into 13 turnovers.

But, Michigan State is a very good team, so don't take anything away from them. Indiana just played better tonight and clinched at least a five-seed in the Big Ten Tournament next week.

Indiana will play their last game of the regular season at home on Sunday at 6 p.m. against arch-rival Purdue in Assembly Hall.

Indiana just beat Purdue a month ago in West Lafayette by 17 points and looks to finish this season strong.

Watch out for Indiana in March, as they've won eight of their last 11 contests—they've beaten Penn State, Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, NC Central and Michigan State at home, and Purdue and Minnesota on the road.

Both road wins were by high double figures.

If you want to look deeper, seven of Indiana's last eight wins have all been by double figures.

This is a very scary team come tournament time.