After eventful two days, Michigan State will look to clinch outright Big Ten title at Wisconsin

Michigan State players celebrate at the Breslin Center at Michigan State University in East Lansing on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018. Michigan State won the game over Illinois to clinch at least a share of the Big Ten title. (J. Scott Park | MLive.com)

EAST LANSING - After a frantic last three days, in which Michigan State star Miles Bridges and assistant coach Dwayne Stephens were both linked to a central figure in the FBI probe into college basketball, Michigan State still has a conference title for which to play.

The No. 2 Spartans will play at Wisconsin on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS) in their regular-season finale. A win will give Michigan State its first outright Big Ten title since 2009. The Spartans already wrapped up at least a share of that title on Tuesday when they beat Illinois.

They will do so with their best player on the floor; Miles Bridges was ruled eligible by the NCAA on Saturday, Michigan State announced. On Friday, Yahoo! reported that Bridges' mother appeared on an expense report from Christian Dawkins, a former associate of agent Andy Miller. That expense report noted a $400 advance to Cynthia Bridges and a $70 for both of Bridges' parents.

Following a day of uncertainty, the Spartans announced that it had conducted an internal investigation into the matter and forwarded its finding on to the NCAA, which declared Bridges eligible.

That means the Spartans will play for that title with its leading scorer and have him available as it plays for a Big Ten tournament title next week, then a national championship.

Spartans coach Tom Izzo has offered little comment on the situation, other than to say that Michigan State has no reason to believe any of its coaches or players violated NCAA rules. In addition to the report about Bridges, Yahoo! also reported the existence of an email in which Dawkins claims he spoke to Michigan State associate coach Dwayne Stephens and tried to broker a deal to send recruit Brian Bowen to Michigan State. Stephens said in a statement on Saturday that "I'm confident that I have not committed a violation."

Michigan State will now try to put all of that aside as it vies for its 12th straight win to end the regular season.

On his weekly radio show on Wednesday night, Izzo said he had a simple message for his players when they left practice, a day after wrapping up at least a share of a Big Ten title.

"I said if you don't like the pressure, you'd better get used to it," Izzo said.

As Izzo pointed out, every game the Spartans will play the rest of the season will be for a championship. After they play for the outright conference title on Sunday, any loss will cost the Spartans a potential title in the single-elimination postseason tournaments.

"Every time you play, it's for a championship, because if you lose, you're out, and then the next week it's the same way," Izzo said. "There could be a lot of games with a lot of pressure, and I hope they embrace it, I hope that's why they came here."

Wisconsin is nearing the end of an uncharacteristically down season, at 14-16 overall. Yet the Badgers head into Sunday's matchup having won four of their last five games. As Tom Izzo is quick to point out, one of those wins was over No. 3 Purdue at home on Feb. 15.

And as Izzo is also quick to point out, Michigan State has lost its last three games in Madison, the last of which came in 2016. The Spartans haven't won at the Kohl Center since 2013.

"They've really stepped up their game in the last month or so," Izzo said. "It's a better team, it's a team that has now won some games. They're very good at home as we all know."

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