Finding a way to churn out road victories is the mark of a championship-caliber team. No. 18/15 Michigan State has only played one true road game in its first 13 games of the season; an 18-point victory against a Minnesota team whose current best win is Yale.

Now as the Big Ten schedule resumes, the Spartans now face a challenge in 9-4 (1-1 Big Ten) Ohio State. The Buckeyes (receiving votes in the AP) are 1-3 against teams currently in the AP Top 25, but recently crushed No. 10 Kentucky by 20 on a neutral court.

“It’s a new year, so we want to start out with a bang,” said MSU guard Tre Holloman on Wednesday. “We’re going to find out a lot. (It’s) our first road test, so we’re just gonna try and go out there and just have fun.”

These types of games were a struggle for the Spartans last year, as they finished 3-7 in true road games. None of those three victories were Quad One games either. This test will be.

“This is a very big game,” said MSU forward Jaxon Kohler. “It’s Big Ten play; we’re getting back into it. It’s also on the road, and it’s a chance to go 3-0 (in conference play).”

In addition, a 3-0 Big Ten start would open the door to a potential big run for the Spartans. According to KenPom, this is MSU’s most difficult game until it plays at No. 15 UCLA on February 4 on the backend of a two-game west coast trip that opens with USC on Feb. 1. There are another six games between the Buckeyes and the Bruins.

Currently, sportsbooks favor the Buckeyes in this one by a point or two. Obviously, betting markets are of no concern to the team, but finding a way to win in these types of games is what can make the difference between settling for a seven/eight seed in March compared to actually competing for hardware.

“Every game from here on out is going to be very important,” Kohler said. “So every game we have to go in with the mindset of ‘this is the most important game of the season.’”

OSU has caused problems for MSU in the past two seasons. The Buckeyes have won each of the last two meetings, defeating the Spartans in the 2023 Big Ten Tournament and on a buzzer-beater at the Breslin Center last February.

“This is a new year,” Kohler said about the most recent meeting. “We’re not trying to focus too much on what happened last year. It’s like I said, this is a new year, and whether it’s Ohio State, or Purdue, or Duke, or whoever, we’re going to treat it as the most important game for us.”

As Holloman said earlier, this is going to be Michigan State’s first true road test. Sure, there is that Minnesota game, but OSU is a better team and has the more passionate fanbase (that is also probably juiced up from a Rose Bowl win by the football team on Wednesday).

“It’s gonna be hostile,” Kohler said. “But at the same time, we’re not focused on the environment. We’re just focused on what we need to do and what we need to get done.”

The road will challenge MSU head coach Tom Izzo to find that balance he needs between ensuring he properly utilizes the depth that his squad has, while also leaning on some of his more experienced guys that are more used to thousands of people screaming at them.

“I’ve never had this much depth, so it’s new territory for me,” Izzo said. “But you’ve always got to rely on your toughness; so we’re constantly trying to make our team tougher. You’ve got to rely on your depth some because you sometimes get in more foul trouble on the road. Sometimes (you’re) more fatigued on the road.”

Regardless of if he thinks veterans like Jaden Akins need an increase in minutes for games like these or not, Izzo thinks he has a team that can play well enough to win.

“I just think we’ve got to play,” Izzo said. “We’ve got to play. We’ve got to come and really bring it — we didn’t really bring it the other day (against Western Michigan).”

The way MSU can do that is by improving its rebounding. Western Michigan head coach and former longtime MSU assistant Dwayne Stephens’ Broncos challenged the Spartans on the glass Monday, grabbing 11 offensive rebounds for eight second-chance points.

“Any team that rebounds like (WMU) rebounds, (it) means his players are playing hard,” Izzo said of Stephens’ team. “We didn’t rebound the first two-thirds of that game, which means our players weren’t playing as hard.”

Moving from the paint to the arc, another big focus for MSU will need to be to contain OSU’s perimeter shooting. The Buckeyes don’t necessarily take a ton of threes; but when they do, they make them at a 39.6% clip, which is 17th nationally. Bruce Thornton, OSU’s leading scorer, has been shooting 49% from beyond the arc as well.

“They’ve got a great, great, great guard,” Izzo said in reference to Thornton. “That’s what concerns me, because he hurt us last year. He’s dynamite. I think we match up good, and yet that’ll be the challenge for us. Can we keep the guards out of the paint (and) stop their 3-point shooting?”

The last big thing Izzo has been hammering has been the turnovers. MSU had 17 of them against WMU, and that is not a number any team will get away with much during conference play.

“It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy with the effort,” Izzo said. “I felt like we got casual with our passing — the turnovers. And if you look at what we did defensively and you take away like five turnovers for touchdowns (fast breaks), we probably did as good a job as we needed to do defensively.

“I watched the (Fiesta Bowl on Tuesday), Boise State, I watched a little bit of that. Turnovers made it so they didn’t have a chance. I watched Michigan win (against Alabama), turnovers made it so they did have a chance. Doesn’t matter what sport you’re in; it’s all the same.”

Michigan State’s game against Ohio State is set to tip off Friday at 8 p.m. with the game televised on FOX.

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