Couch: Michigan State's hopes of a Big Ten title, strong NCAA tournament seed hinge on a trip to Wisconsin
There will be bigger games for Michigan State’s men’s basketball team once the postseason arrives. But in the regular season, given the circumstances, there aren’t any that’ll determine the possibilities for MSU more than Friday’s trip to Wisconsin.
It’s a potential pivot point, a launching pad, whatever you want to call it. If MSU wins in Madison, you can keep one eye on the Big Ten race and reimagine what’s attainable for the Spartans in terms of seeding in the NCAA tournament.
Let’s start there: MSU will be in the NCAA tournament, barring a significant injury. The way-too-early projected brackets that have MSU barely in the field or missing the tournament altogether are a waste of your time. I’ve seen MSU teams that were legitimately on the bubble in late January — 2015, ’17 and ’21, for example. This isn’t one of them. Not close. The bracketologists that see these Spartans near the bubble are leaning too heavily into their current record and not enough into predictive metrics or how MSU’s played most nights since mid-December.
The Spartans might be a modest 12-7 overall and 4-4 in the Big Ten, but they’ve won 8 of 10 games and reputable advanced metrics sites like Barttorvik.com, Kenpom.com and the NCAA’s own NET rankings have MSU somewhere between No. 12 and 21 nationally. That’s a long, long way from the bubble.
The real questions at hand for this MSU team — a team that was supposed to be in the top 10 all season — are where it can get to by Selection Sunday, whether it can earn a favorable NCAA tournament seed, and if it can perhaps even still contend for a Big Ten championship.
The latter could be answered definitively at Wisconsin. One more loss is curtains for the Spartans’ hopes of catching the Badgers or Purdue in the Big Ten race. I don’t know how realistic that is anyway. But it could be something to chase, at least, during a string of games just ahead that the Spartans will be favored to win. It’s also an important game for NCAA tournament seeding — because winning at Wisconsin, No. 13 in the NET rankings — would be a Quad 1 win that would stand the test of time. And because, in this season’s Big Ten, there aren’t an abundance of quality wins to be had remaining.
What sort of NCAA tournament seed for MSU are we talking?
Barttorvik and Kenpom, two of the best predictive metrics sites available, both project MSU to finish the regular season 20-11 overall and 12-8 in the Big Ten, though, game by game, each predicts the Spartans to win every remaining game other than Friday at Wisconsin and March 2 at Purdue. If that happened, MSU would actually finish the regular season 22-9, including 14-6 in the Big Ten.
Barttorvik, as of Tuesday night, projected MSU to be at the top of the 6-seed line in the NCAA tournament, which, of course, is nowhere near the bubble. And is a seed from which the Spartans, if playing well, can get where they want to go.
But let’s say MSU wins at Wisconsin on Friday. There’s an opportunity for MSU to put a nice run together, which would help its win-loss record catch up to its standing in some of the metrics. The Spartans host Michigan on Tuesday and then Maryland on Saturday, then play at Minnesota, are home against Illinois, travel to Penn State and Michigan and host Iowa and Ohio State before that aforementioned March 2 trip to West Lafayette. There are potential pitfalls in that stretch — at Minnesota perhaps, Illinois at home for sure, Michigan on the road maybe-ish — and certain losses would be damaging to MSU’s postseason resume. But you can also see how the Spartans should be able to string some wins together. Outside of Illinois, none of those are top 45 teams in Kenpom. And Michigan, which is 81st, is the top-ranked road team the Spartans face between the Badgers and Boilermakers.
If MSU — which, after its trip to Purdue, finishes at home against Northwestern and at Indiana — were only to drop one game the rest of the way, to the Boilermakers, the Spartans would be looking at a 15-5 Big Ten finish and a top-three seed in the Big Ten tournament. If they won another game or two there, the ceiling for this team — without pulling an upset at Mackey Arena on March 2 — is probably a top 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. That’s still in play. And, given the schedule ahead, not unrealistic, even if it requires a level of consistency from this MSU squad that remains a tad tough to imagine.
But if the Spartans beat Wisconsin, that’s on the table. Lose that game, however, and it’s hard to see MSU as anything better than a 5 seed.
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The path to a Big Ten crown
For MSU to win the Big Ten — with having four losses before the end of January — would, at minimum, probably mean winning the rest of its games. That includes winning at Purdue in the only scheduled meeting between the two teams this season. That’s a big ask. And still might not be enough. The Boilermakers, who are 7-2 in the Big Ten after Tuesday’s demolition of Michigan, might not have two more losses in them, even if one of them is to MSU. And Wisconsin, which is 7-1 after winning narrowly at Minnesota on Tuesday, would have to drop some games elsewhere, too, though that’s probably more likely. It helps that the Badgers and Boilermakers still have to play each other twice. And that both still have a game against Illinois. And that Purdue has shown, on the road, like MSU, it can lose to Nebraska and Northwestern.
If MSU wins Friday at Wisconsin, the door to a Big Ten championship at least isn’t closed. If MSU then handles its business at home and against inferior opponents on the road, Purdue might have to beat the Spartans to clinch or win the title. And, at the very least, the Big Ten title still being in play would add some juice to the Spartans’ march through February.
It all starts, though, with beating the Badgers.
MORE: Couch: How much older is Big Ten basketball? A lot. And Michigan State leads the way
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Michigan State basketball: A lot on the line for MSU at Wisconsin
