Does Cassius Winston still surprise you? He does, doesn't he? After everything you've seen him do at Michigan State, he somehow finds a way to show you something more. All you can do is shake your head, maybe even laugh, like Xavier Tillman as he reflected on Winston's sparkling performance in Michigan State's win over Michigan on Sunday.
"You don't get surprised by some of his shots?" Tillman asked.
Oh, of course we do. But we don't watch Winston every day. We don't see all the impossible things he does when the curtain is down. If anyone would be somewhat immune to Winston's greatness by now, wouldn't it be the dude who's been with him for every moment of a takeover that started last season? Wouldn't it be Tillman?
"I never take him for granted," said Tillman. "Buckets are buckets."
And now Tillman scratched his head and thought back to a sequence early in the second half. Tillman was on the bench at the time, and Winston was racing up and down the floor, beginning to take over the game.
"Do you remember? I don’t even know if he got a screen or not. It was (in front of) our bench and he did a move where he, like, bounced to the right and shot a three. I was like, yo, what kind of shot was that? And he hit it. Oh, okay, yeah, good shot, good shot," Tillman said as he laughed and clapped his hands.
Winston was so good on Sunday he was sinking shots off the record. A circus layup after a foul on a fast break. A pull-up three after a whistle at the other end, a whistle that only half the building heard because Winston had already whipped the place into a lather. That three wouldn't have surprised Tillman. He's seen plenty of those before.
But the pass that Winston whirled over his head into Tillman's hands for an alley-oop a few minutes prior? Yeah, Winston took him by surprise again.
"I was just rolling to the basket, but I kind of stopped going hard because I’m like, oh, he doesn’t see me anymore. He threw it and I was like, no way," said Tillman, with another shake of his head.
Surprise is the essence of Winston's game. He's not built like Tillman, he doesn't jump like Gabe Brown, he doesn't glide across the floor like Aaron Henry. He's right there in front of you, dribbling slowly in place, and then he's slipping through the defense to the rack, or he's rising for a three, or he's dishing it to an open man who was covered just a moment ago.
"He's just elite-level, it's that simple," said Michigan coach Juwan Howard. "Give him credit. He's crafty. He showed it all last year."
This year has been different. This year, for tragic reasons, has been harder. Winston's game has fallen out of rhythm as his life has been thrown off its axis. But he's coming back around. He's looking more and more like himself, and on Sunday he was the best we've ever seen him.
It was the most fun, Winston said, that he's had this season. The joy that's been bottled inside him seemed to spill forth all at once, released by those back-to-back threes. As the crowd exploded, Winston walked around the court and waved his arms for more. Then he basked in the roars, which rained down from the rafters and seemed to make his world shine again.
"It’s one of those games you kind of dream of growing up," Winston said. "Big game, against a rival, everything falling for you."
Tillman wasn't the only one taken aback by Winston's latest show. Tom Izzo cracked that Winston even stepped up on defense. But it was Winston's commanding demeanor that really stood out to Izzo, not that this is anything new. Winston has been helping Izzo coach this team since last season. At times on Sunday, Winston basically coached it himself.
"He just looked more aggressive and focused, and in the huddles he was telling guys what to do," Izzo said. "I just felt like his orchestration in those huddles was something that is a coach’s dream. 'Cash, what do you want to run? What do you think we can run? How do you think they’re playing them?'
"You know he was going to get a lot of attention today, and it was one of the greater performances that this building has seen."
It's a building that's been around since 1989, that's been home to the likes of Mateen Cleaves, Shawn Respert and Draymond Green. Winston will one day join them in the rafters. These days, he's taking it one at a time, trying to forge through the sadness he carries with him, trying to find moments that lift him, even for an hour or two on a Sunday afternoon.
Winston's nights, meanwhile, are mostly sleepless. It's part of who he is, and the pain in his heart doesn't help. Tillman tells him to shut his eyes, even if he can't go to sleep. His body needs the rest. Winston didn't drift off on Sunday until about 4 in the morning. He was up a few short hours later to get ready to play, and then he delivered the best game of his splendid career.
Tillman, like the rest of us, shook his head one more time.
"I don’t know how he does it," he said.