Cassius Winston Leads No. 24 MSU to 78-66 Upset over No. 9 Maryland

The Big Ten title doesn't belong to Maryland just yet.

No. 24 Michigan State made sure of that Saturday with an emphatic 78-66 victory over the conference's first-place team in a game that could've cliched the regular-season title for the Terrapins. 

Instead, MSU is just one game back with a week to go. 

The biggest contest of the year in College Park went off the rails quickly for the hosts when the Spartans opened an 18-point lead before entering halftime ahead 40-29. Cassius Winston led the way with 20 points on the night, as four MSU starters scored in double figures. 

Forward Jalen Smith did his best to pull the Terps back into the game, finishing with 20 points and 12 rebounds.

It was another Saturday filled with upsets as No. 2 Baylor, No. 7 Duke, No. 6 Florida State, No. 12 Villanova and No. 22 Texas Tech all lost. No defeat will hurt more than Maryland's, however, which prevented a conference championship.

As for what went wrong for Maryland, Terps coach Mark Turgeon pointed to two areas in his postgame press conference. The first: There were too many Spartans making threes that Turgeon thought the team would be OK with sagging off defensively (MSU went 12-of-28 from three).

The other problem was Winston. 

"There's not many guys that's as good as he is in ball screens and recognizing things and making open shots," Turgeon said. "They were good. That's all I can say. They were really, really good."

The coach added he felt Michigan State was a different team than the one Maryland defeated 67-60 in East Lansing two weeks ago.

Turgeon's counterpart was happy with the result.

"Well, as you can imagine, that was a hell of a win for us," Tom Izzo said as he stepped to the podium in College Park. 

Another few games like this and Michigan State could grab the top seed in the Big Ten tournament.