Column: Matt Costello quietly puts together best stretch of Michigan State career

Carlos Morris, Matt Costello

Michigan State's Matt Costello, left, drives around Minnesota's Carlos Morris in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 2, 2016, in Minneapolis. Michigan State won 69-61.

(AP Photo/Jim Mone)

MINNEAPOLIS -- If it wasn't for the presence of Denzel Valentine, Michigan State's most notable senior, we'd probably be talking about another one a lot more.

Spartans senior forward Matt Costello has somewhat quietly put together the best three-game stretch of his Michigan State career, and set himself up for a potentially memorable end to it.

The big man put up back-to-back 17-point games against Iowa and Minnesota, matching his career high both times. His night against Minnesota on Saturday included a career-high 15 rebounds.

Add in his 10-point, 11-rebound performance against Oakland, he's been the most consistent presence in Valentine's three-game absence due to injury with a double-double average.

Tom Izzo has stolen a phrase from Mark Dantonio in recent years: seniors have to have their best years for a team to do great things. It may have taken the injury of one to bring out the best in another, but we're at last seeing it from Costello.

Costello came to Michigan State as a Mr. Basketball winner, but had to wait his turn behind Adreian Payne. In the season-and-a-half since then, he's shown promise at times, but has also struggled with foul trouble and inconsistency.

Three games is a small sample size, and his role will decrease once Valentine returns. But the stretch has marked Costello looking like the big man people thought he could be when he stepped onto campus three years ago.

To Izzo, that's been a result of him staying in his wheelhouse.

"He's spending more time in the block instead of wanting to filter around the perimeter," Izzo said Saturday. "Even the couple of jump shots he took were 10-footers and that was good."

Those few 3-pointers Costello has taken this year and last? He may be able to make them, but they make his coach wince every time. The Spartans coaching staff would rather have him doing work down low. It's there where he's shown a more polished game offensively, with an effective hook shot, short jumpers and putbacks.

This is worth pointing out, because it's been done somewhat quietly.

Against Oakland, Bryn Forbes and Eron Harris stole the show. Against Iowa, Costello performance was immediately forgotten in a 13-point loss, but he was easily the Spartans' best player and an exception to Izzo's assessment that the team lacked effort.

On Saturday, Costello got noticed plenty. But it ended up more in the context of Michigan State's strategy of using two big men and feeding them the ball more.

Costello, for his part, isn't exactly a personal public relations team, either. Here's his response when asked how he pulled down 15 rebounds against the Gophers:

"They were bouncing my way today. That's really what it is. I was attacking the glass, but they came my way."

While reporters in Minneapolis spoke to Valentine after Saturday's game, learning that he hopes to return as early as Thursday against Illinois, Costello quietly slipped out of the visitors locker room. To talk about one of the best games of his career, he had to be tracked down to the Williams Arena concourse.

Costello is fine without the spotlight on him right now. And soon enough, Valentine will be back in it. But in the interim, he's quietly showing there's more than one fourth-year Michigan State player having a career year.

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