On this day, he had gone through classes, then practice, then one media obligation after another. By the time he finished a 45-minute segment with CBS Sports on the floor of Michigan State's practice gym, it was 7 at night and all of his teammates had showered and left the building. Winston still had a lift to get through. Waiting for him on the other side of the glass between the court and the weight room was the team’s strength and conditioning coach, Marshall Repp.
“I’m like, ‘Alright, man. Come on,’” said Repp. “And he wanted to go home so badly. I don’t blame him. But you know what, ‘We’re going to get this lift in. I’m going to be here with you. This won’t take long, but we gotta get this in.’”
Winston didn’t have a choice. Several months ago, he was standing beside Repp in that same weight room, pushing himself to become the player he is now. It was sometime between the end of the 2018 school year and the start of the offseason program, as Repp remembers, when most of the team was enjoying a couple weeks of vacation. Winston and Xavier Tillman were the only two on campus. Repp asked both of them to make him a promise.
“I said, ‘Can I have your permission right now? Will you promise that I can hold you accountable as hard as I need to and you will not disagree when it happens? Because you’ll forget about this and it’ll be three months from now when we’re in season and I need you to do something. Let me get your consent right now than I can hold you accountable to whatever I need to,’” said Repp.
Winston and Tillman agreed. That’s why they were here in the first place. For Winston, the goal was to reduce his body fat and increase his strength, particularly in his legs. He needed to improve his lateral quickness to become a better on-ball defender. He needed to pack on more muscle to be able to attack the rim. Winston had something of a breakout season as a sophomore, fueled by similar sacrifices he made the summer after his freshman year, but there were still significant gaps in his game.
Remember, it was Carsen Edwards, not Winston, who was tabbed as the preseason Player of the Year in the Big Ten. What those voters didn't know -- what hardly anyone knew -- is that Winston was stronger than ever after dedicating another offseason to building his body.
“The summer was huge for him to just to take his game to that next level, and I feel like it’s really showed on the court,” said Repp. “Just last year to this year, his quickness, his ability to guard, his first step. I feel like his sophomore year he was a very perimeter-only player.”
The rest of the team joined Winston and Tillman near the end of May to kick off its eight-week training period. Repp took the players through four lifts a week, with Thursday set aside for more personalized workouts. In Winston’s case, this meant side shuffles with resistance bands and lateral jumps, tons of them. Tom Izzo, who rode Winston harder than anyone his first two years about his defense, preaches something called a reach step, the move a defender uses to get over ball screens. The side shuffles helped Winston mimic that motion. And when the resistance bands came off, everything was suddenly much easier.
Winston has a hitch in his gait. He almost limps when he walks, but Repp learned a long time ago not to read too much into it. “That’s just kind of his strut,” he said. By the same token, Winston is stronger than he looks. He doesn’t have chiseled arms or ripped abs, but then, he doesn’t have much outward intensity either. No one doubts what lies within. By the end of last summer, Repp said, Winston was the team’s self-proclaimed ‘Pull-Up King.’ No, he’s not talking about the jump shot.
“Don’t sleep on his back,” said Repp. “His back is strong.”
Over the course of the summer, Repp – who acknowledges his last name is fitting – continued to increase the number of pull-up reps during team workouts. Winston continued to bang them out with ease, up and down, up and down, with perfect form. When Repp added weights, Winston kept going. He almost scoffed at the challenge. No -- he scoffed at it with delight.
When it came time for the pull-up test, Winston scored in the low- to mid-20s. Only one player on the team can do more: walk-on freshman Jack Hoiberg, who’s listed at 5’11, 175 lbs. (“Shorter arms,” Repp said with a smile. “Jack’s freaking strong. He’s literally a walking muscle.”) Winston might limp like an old man at times, and his body might seem doughy when he takes off his shirt, but that’s all part of his character. He’s like a hustler at the pool table.
“He’s one of those guys who kind of slopes around and he puffs his stomach out when he breathes, but if you actually say, ‘Cash, flex,’ and he flexes his stomach, he is extremely cut,” said Repp. “He might not be as bulky as a Carsen Edwards, but he’s a cut-up dude."
This added upper-body strength has been essential for Winston this season. He drives the basket with more confidence, knowing he can withstand the contact from bigger players. He’s still a great shooter from outside, but now he’s a threat at all three levels, and he does most of his scoring inside the arc. After taking more three-pointers than twos last year, Winston has significantly reversed that trend this year. In the process, he’s nearly doubled his rate of free throws. This is how a player who scored 12.6 points per game as a sophomore is up to 18.9 as a junior.
“This year he has the ability to drive a lot more. He’ll put bodies on guys, get guys on his back. He plays within the lane a lot more now with his floaters and stuff like that,” said Repp. “If you’re really weak, you don’t have that ability, you don’t want to go in there and catch contact, whereas now he’s on the ground all the time because he’s confident taking those body blows because of his strength.”
Repp arrived at Michigan State the same summer as Winston and the rest of that vaunted 2016 recruiting class. He was 23 at the time, just a couple years removed from playing college football at the University of Northwestern in Minnesota. He’s built more like a fullback, but cornerback was his position. When Winston and his teammates found out about this, they all wanted to test his ability to cover them one-on-one. Winston hasn’t stopped. Every day before practice, after the team goes through its warm-up drills, you’ll find Winston and Repp on the baseline in the back of the gym, Winston lined up as the wide receiver, Repp playing corner.
“I’ll be right up on him, and he’ll throw a move on me and try to get off. I can always tell how good his body is feeling by that. If he’s feeling jacked up, ready to go, he can get me,” Repp said with a smile, adding that, on this day, it was a draw. “He’s still a Division 1 point guard. He’s got a mysterious quickness to him. Very deceptive. He’s crafty-quick. He’s broken me a few times.”
Point guards around the country can relate. Winston got the better of Edwards in both their matchups this season, to say nothing of his play against Zavier Simpson and Michigan. Last weekend in Washington D.C., he dispatched two of the most celebrated point guards in the nation in LSU’s Tremont Waters and Duke’s Tre Jones. Winston’s performance against Waters, who stands head and shoulders above him in sheer athleticism, was particularly impressive – not for the fact that Winston managed 17 points and 8 assists, but because he covered Waters for much of the game.
“Cash has always been a scorer, but he’s not always been a checker. He’s never been able to check the high-octane guards,” said Repp. “Yeah, Tremont scored a lot of points (23), but for Cash to be able to stay in front of him, move his feet, get over balls screens, I was just really impressed. In my mind I was like, ‘Yeah, man, that work started a long time ago.’ No one will ever know that, no one needs to know that, but in my mind, I’m like, ‘Dang, Cash. Good work, man.’”
After sending home Jones and Duke two days later and averaging 19 points and about eight assists through the first four games of the Tournament, Winston was named the East Region’s Most Outstanding Player. On Tuesday he was named an AP All-American. On Saturday he’ll lead Michigan State into the Final Four versus Texas Tech, two wins away from something very few people thought the Spartans could achieve this season.
And at the end of that long day a few weeks ago, he honored his word to Repp and ambled into the weight room.