The Michigan State Spartans are fresh off a trip to Maui, Hawaii, where they participated in the prestigious Maui Invitational.

In their opening game of the tournament, the Spartans dominated Colorado 72-56, with their bench contributing 40 points. However, they fell to Penny Hardaway’s Memphis Tigers 71-63 in the second round. The following day, Michigan State rebounded with a thrilling, high-scoring overtime victory over North Carolina.

What made this win even more impressive was that the Spartans scored 94 points despite being without their third-leading scorer, Jase Richardson, who had the hot-hand through the first two games of the tournament. The win over the Tar Heels secured Michigan State a third-place finish in the eight-team field, which, before the tournament, featured three top-five teams (No. 2 UConn, No. 4 Auburn, No. 5 Iowa State) along with No. 12 North Carolina.

Unfortunately for the Spartans, their 2-1 record in Maui was not enough to land them in this week's AP Top 25, but it did land them at No. 25 in this week’s Coaches’ Poll.

With Big Ten play starting this week (Wednesday at Minnesota, Saturday vs. Nebraska), a couple of victories could push Michigan State into the AP poll by next week.

Tom Izzo, who spoke to the media on Monday, mentioned that the team is “getting a little more confident, and shooting the ball better,” which is great news for the Spartans, who, for the first five games of the season, were not shooting the 3-point ball at an effective clip, just shy of 18%, to be exact.

When the Spartans traveled to Maui, the 3-point woes continued. The Spartans shot 2-for-21 from three against the Buffaloes. The Spartans may be finding their stroke, however – against Memphis, they shot 7-for-20 (35%) from three, and against the Tar Heels, they shot 4-for-16 (25%).

Izzo also mentioned that it’s “good to have the entire team back,” as the Spartans were without Richardson for their third-place game against North Carolina.

“Jase is back,” said Izzo. “His conditioning isn’t all the way there yet, so it will take a little bit of time on that when you’re out three, four, five days. But he (Richardson) practiced a little bit (Sunday), practiced (Monday), and everybody else is good to go, so we’re good to go."

Richardson has been putting together a solid freshman campaign. In the seven games that Richardson has played, he's had double-digit scoring performances in five of them.

Richardson mentions that he feels “100%” now after missing last week’s game against the Tar Heels.

“Last game (North Carolina), I felt like I could have played," Richardson said. "I tried to tough through it, but the training staff didn’t think it was best I played.”

Richardson missed the North Carolina game after some symptoms developed following an elbow to the head he suffered in the Memphis game the day prior.

“It was tough, especially catching an elbow in that game (Memphis)," he said. "I felt like we were playing pretty solid up until that point. For the rest of the game, I felt foggy, but now I’m back to 100% and healthy."

Richardson, who in his two games in Maui (Colorado and North Carolina) scored 13 and 18 points respectively. He has been one of the Spartans' most consistent scorers. This is doing wonders for the freshman’s confidence, especially ahead of Big Ten conference play.

“It just tells me that I can play at this level with older, tougher guys, and just compete," he said.