EAST LANSING, Mich. _ Miles Bridges knows he never would have experienced a No. 1 ranking if he had left Michigan State last offseason for the NBA.
And he realizes the ranking presents a bigger target on the Spartans as they enter the new year as the nation's top team in both the USA Today Coaches Poll and the Associated Press Top 25.
"It was one of my goals, for real," Bridges said after practice Tuesday. "It's a blessing to have that. But like I said before, we want to keep that until the end of the season and be No. 1 when we're cutting the nets."
The Spartans received 25 of 30 first-place votes to move to No. 1 in the coaches poll on Tuesday, with Duke getting four votes and Villanova with one. MSU climbed to No. 1 in the AP poll on Monday.
That is what makes this fifth time in school history and fourth time under coach Tom Izzo that the Spartans (14-1, 2-0 Big Ten) have moved into the No. 1 spot in the rankings. It is the program's first time atop the polls since the first week of 2016, with a Denzel Valentine-led, senior-laden team.
The makeup of this season's team features sophomores Bridges, Joshua Langford, Nick Ward and Cassius Winston leading the way.
"If you ask if it's tougher, that's one answer. If you ask me if I'm confident, that's another answer," Izzo said. "We haven't been here with a team this young before. That was one of the other statements I made with my guys (Tuesday) morning. 'Miles, you think you've done a lot because you could've gone pro _ you've never been in this situation. You never had a chance to play for a Big Ten championship really. You never were ranked No. 1.'
"These things, they're advantages. But you gotta realize that somebody is putting a bull's-eye on your back."
Izzo was pleased with Tuesday's morning practice, and the Spartans were scheduled to work out again in the evening in preparation for Thursday's resumption of Big Ten play at home against Maryland.
MSU is coming off a school record four straight games of scoring more than 100 points and averaged 100.3 points in six nonconference games since opening Big Ten play with wins over Nebraska and Rutgers in early December.
The Spartans' average margin of victory in their last six games is 38.5 points. That includes a 102-60 blowout over Cleveland State on Friday and a 108-52 dismantling of Savannah State on Sunday, in which they scored the final 32 points and held the Tigers scoreless for the final 8:58.
"I think we shot the ball better. After shooting it decent, we shot it a lot better," Izzo said of the four-game stretch. "That's the (Jim) Boeheim rule that you get confidence, which is probably true. I thought we ran much better, because we had more opportunities to run. And we executed a little better."
But both Izzo and his players know that the competition increases with the final 16 games and Big Ten tournament coming against familiar competition that knows what the Spartans want to do.
Their mission to retain the No. 1 ranking will be to prove their opponents can't stop them.
"Every team is going to come out here and give us their best shot, so we gotta be ready for it," Winston said. "One of those things on our list is a Big Ten championship. We got off to a good start and grew as a team. Now is the time to go after that next thing on our list."
