PISCATAWAY – It’s been a long college football journey for Michigan State’s leading rusher, but it’s one that started five years ago with Rutgers football.

Running back Kay’ron Lynch-Adams spent the 2019 and 2020 seasons with the Scarlet Knights before transferring to UMass, but now he’s with the Spartans and a player Rutgers’ defense will need to limit Saturday (3:30 p.m., FS1) at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing.

The 5-foot-10, 215-pound Ohio native returned to the Power 4 level with the Spartans as a sixth-year graduate transfer, and through 11 games has a team-leading 580 yards rushing on 124 carries (4.7 yards per attempt) with two touchdowns.

Lynch-Adams’ production isn’t surprising to Rutgers coach Greg Schiano, who on Monday said he believed Lynch-Adams had this type of potential.

“I was disappointed when he left. I liked the young man, and I also really liked the football player,” Schiano said. “And I can remember exactly where I was when he called me to tell me he was leaving. I was truly disappointed, and really tried to keep him.”

Lynch-Adams played in nine games for Rutgers in 2019, finishing with 161 rushing yards on 48 carries. Then in 2020, he ran for 159 yards and one touchdown on 35 carries in the pandemic-shortened nine-game season.

The problem for Lynch-Adams was that there was a stellar running back atop the depth chart – now two-time Super Bowl champion Isiah Pacheco of the Kansas City Chiefs.

While Schiano didn’t want Lynch-Adams to leave, he couldn’t blame him either.

“I understood why,” Schiano said. “You know, you had this guy by the name of Pacheco in front of him, and he’s a pretty good player, too.”

Lynch-Adams was productive at UMass – last season he rushed for 1,157 yards on 236 carries with 12 touchdowns.

“It’s not like I have stayed in touch with him but I have a little bit,” Schiano said. “I really respect him. He’s a hard-working kid. He’s a really tough football player and I love the way he played. I loved what he did. He was a team guy. I was disappointed when we lost him, and I’m not surprised that he’s having success.”

Lynch-Adams will be the latest challenge for Rutgers’ run defense, which has been up and down this season. He splits carries with Nate Carter, who’s rushed for 452 yards and four touchdowns this season.

The Scarlet Knights are hoping to pick up a seventh regular-season victory, something they haven’t done since 2014.

Limiting Lynch-Adams will be a key to making that happen.

“He’s someone that we have to stop now for sure,” Schiano said.

So much for Jase Richardson’s sprained left ankle.

Less than a week after rolling it late in a game and being helped off the court, he led Michigan State on it.

The freshman guard came off the bench to score a career-high 13 points as the Spartans rolled to a 72-56 win against Colorado on Monday in the opening around of the Maui Invitational at the Lahaina Civic Center.

In the first tournament setting of the season, Michigan State overcame another miserable shooting performance beyond the arc (2-for-21) with a deep rotation, explosive transition game and active defense.

The Spartans (5-1) will play their second of three games in three days on Tuesday (6 p.m., ESPN) in a semifinal against Memphis (5-0), which survived a late rally to knock off No. 2 UConn 99-97 in overtime earlier Monday. The other half of the bracket features No. 4 Auburn, No. 5 Iowa State, No. 12 North Carolina and Dayton, who are all playing later Monday night.

Richardson made six of eight field goals and was one of 10 different scorers for the Spartans, whose bench outscored the Buffaloes 40-13. Frankie Fidler scored nine, Jeremy Fears had eight and six assists and Coen Carr had eight points.

Julian Hammond led Colorado with a game-high 15 points while Elijah Malone scored 14.

Any concerns about Richardson’s mobility after suffering a sprained ankle late in last week’s 83-75 win against Samford were quickly erased. He checked in less than four minutes into the game and immediately got in the paint for a basket. Richardson shot 4-for-4 from the floor in the first half and Carr made all three of his shot attempts as the two combined for 14 of Michigan State’s 23 bench points in the opening 20 minutes.

That helped make up for the awful 3-point shooting that has plagued the Spartans so far this season. They entered Monday’s game ranked 352nd out of 355 teams in the nation from beyond the arc at just 22.1 percent and picked up where they left off. Michigan State shot 50 percent (15-for-30) from the floor in the opening half despite missing all nine 3-point attempts.

After the teams traded baskets and slim leads, the Spartans closed the half on a 17-4 run. Colorado went scoreless for more than five minutes and missed 10 straight shots at one point before going into halftime trailing 38-25.

Coming out of the locker room, the Buffaloes put together an 8-2 run with a pair of triples from Hammond but three quick turnovers prevented them from further shrinking the deficit. After Michigan State missed its first 14 triple tries, Richardson knocked one down a little more than six minutes into the second half to reestablish a double-digit advantage. The Spartans cruised down the stretch to secure a spot in the semifinals.

Michigan clinched bowl eligibility by landing its sixth win of the season over the weekend, a 50-6 beat down of lowly Northwestern.

And while all eyes are on the rivalry game against Ohio State this Saturday (Noon, FOX), the postseason is fast approaching. In 13 days, the Wolverines will learn of their bowl draw. It won’t be a high-profile game like years past, but several intriguing sites remain a possibility for Sherrone Moore’s team.

The most popular pick this week is the Music City Bowl in Nashville, set for Dec. 30 at Nissan Stadium. It would mark Michigan’s first-ever appearance in the game and pit the Wolverines against an SEC school.

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach has Michigan playing Ole Miss in the Music City Bowl, CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm predicts a Michigan-Missouri matchup in Nashville, while USA Today’s Erick Smith projects the Wolverines to play Texas A&M. All three SEC schools have been in the playoff picture this year, setting the stage for an intriguing neutral-site game.

Three other national writers have Michigan playing in three different bowl games. ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura predicts a Michigan-Syracuse matchup in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl on Jan. 3 in Charlotte. The Action Network’s Brett McMurphy, whose track-record projecting bowl sites and matchups is among the best, has the Wolverines playing Pittsburgh in the Pinstripe Bowl on Dec. 28 at Yankee Stadium in New York. And in an interesting outlier, The Sporting News’ Bill Bender projects a Michigan-Texas A&M matchup in the Dec. 31 ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa, Fla.

How the top of the Big Ten fares when it comes to the 12-team playoff matters here. Getting four teams in like some are projecting would help Michigan’s standing in the bowl selection process. But if one of those teams gets left out (looking at you, Indiana), it would almost certainly kill any chance of returning to Florida.

After the playoff bids are doled out, the Citrus Bowl has the first pick of the remaining bowl-eligible Big Ten teams, followed by the ReliaQuest Bowl (former Outback Bowl). An 8 or 9-win Illinois would likely be the next Big Ten team off the board, followed by a 7 or 8-win Iowa. After that, though, is anyone’s guess.

And what if Michigan pulls off the upset in Columbus and gets to seven wins? It could suddenly move the Wolverines up the pecking order and give the ReliaQuest Bowl a reason to pick them, provided that Indiana does make the playoff.

This week will help offer some clarity with the Big Ten standings. There’s also a possibility of college football having too many bowl eligible teams this year. And while that certainly won’t affect Michigan — its brand and following are too large to keep out, even at 6-6 — but could limit the number of secondary bowls available to the Big Ten.

• BETTING: Check out our guide to the best Michigan sportsbooks, where our team of sports betting experts has reviewed the experience, payout speed, parlay options and quality of odds for multiple sportsbooks.