#8 Michigan State PG Cassius Winston Named Big Ten Player of the Week
Breslin Center
East Lansing, MI
The newly #8 ranked Michigan State Spartans beat up and beat down their arch-rival the #12 Michigan Wolverines on Sunday. That improves the men in green’s season record to 12-3 (4-0). The Spartans vs. Wolverines finished with a final score of 87-69.
Today the Spartans got some good news for their super-star PG Cassius Winston who won a special honor. Here is the press release courtesy of MSU SID Mex Carey.
Cassius Winston Named Big Ten Player of the Week
East Lansing, Mich. – Michigan State senior guard Cassius Winston (Detroit, Mich./University of Detroit Jesuit) was named the Big Ten Player of the Week on Monday.
Winston helped lead the Spartans to a pair of wins last week, beating Illinois, 76-56, on Thursday and then posting an 87-69 win over then-No. 12 Michigan on Sunday.
The Spartans have won seven-straight games and nine of the last 10 overall to improve to 12-3 overall and 4-0 in the Big Ten. MSU is ranked No. 8 in both the Associated Press poll and the USA Today Coaches poll.
Winston averaged 26.5 points, 7.5 assists and 3.0 rebounds while connecting on 54.5 percent of his field goals, including 62.5 percent of his 3-point attempts (5-of-8) in the wins. He scored a career-high 32 points and handed out nine assists on Sunday in the win over the Wolverines. Earlier in the week, he scored 21 points, had six assists and four rebounds in the win over Illinois.
The senior guard leads MSU, and ranks third in the Big Ten, with 18.9 points per game, and is fourth in the league with 6.3 assists per game. In four conference games, Winston is second in the Big Ten in scoring (24.3 ppg) and third in assists (7.0 apg).
Winston has now scored 1,675 career points and has 802 career assists, becoming the first player in Big Ten history with 1,600 career points and 800 career assists.
He ranks 11th on the all-time scoring list and needs 44 more points to pass Paul Davis (1,718 points, 2002-06) and Mike Robinson (1,717 points, 1971-74) for ninth and 10th place in the MSU record books.
Winston also needs just 16 more assists to pass Mateen Cleaves (817, 1996-2000) for the all-time lead at Michigan State.
This is the first Big Ten Player of the Week honor this season for Winston and the sixth of his career.
Michigan State wraps up a five-game homestand on Thursday, Jan. 9, hosting Minnesota at the Breslin Center. The game tips off at 9 p.m. (ESPN2), with Jason Benetti and Dan Dakich calling all of the action.
The team will return to the hard-court Thursday, January 9, 2020, at the Breslin Center against Minnesota. That game can be seen on ESPN at 9:00 PM.
The Spartans open Big Ten play 4-0 as previously mentioned. They are winning conference games by a 14 point margin on average.
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