FAVORITES Michigan State was
ranked No. 1 in the preseason As-
sociated Press poll, so any assess-
ment of the Big Ten championship
race has to start in East Lansing.
Led by last season's Player of the
Year, point guard Cassius Winston,
the Spartans won nearly every-
thing there was to win a year ago,
claiming the Big Ten's regular-
season and tournament titles and
using their dominant run through the conference as a
springboard to the Final Four, where they lost in the semi-
8nals to Texas Tech. They dropped this year's opener to
second-ranked Kentucky, 69-62, in New York earlier this
month, but they fought back in the second half a
