Michigan State Basketball: Uphill battle to improve NCAA Tourney seed

Michigan State basketball has a long way to go before the season ends with a number of 50-50 Big Ten games ahead that will determine its NCAA Tournament fate.

A lot has happened over the last few weeks, but for Michigan State, nothing has really changed in terms of its national ranking. The Spartans won a few games and everyone (the fans) was looking at a five-seed if not better for them. But then the losses popped up again and MSU is back to square one, sitting around as a likely eight- or nine-seed.

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Instead of trying to predict what the heck this team is going to do in the long run, I’ll lay out a path for the Spartans to get better than an eight-seed. Ideally, a six-seed would be nice, but that’s a little too optimistic at this point.

Win at Indiana
Loss vs. Purdue
Win vs. Michigan
Loss at Nebraska
Win at Michigan

To be honest, I don’t see three wins happening in this stretch, but this is the route to getting a semi-decent seed. The loss of OG Anunoby, while unfortunate, gives the Spartans an edge in that game as Anunoby would’ve likely been tasked with marking Miles Bridges. I can’t envision this MSU team beating Purdue with Caleb Swanigan and Isaac Haas, so that’s a loss. Michigan has been up-and-down this season and I think they put it together in one of those games, but for the purpose of this article, I’ll give MSU the sweep. And then Nebraska is always a thorn in Michigan State’s side. That’ll be another loss where the fans say the team is no good, similar to the Ohio State and Penn State games. Record: 15-9.

Win vs. Iowa
Win vs. Ohio State
Loss at Purdue
Win vs. Nebraska
Loss vs. Wisconsin

If the Spartans don’t win at least three home games in this period, it wouldn’t be surprising if they fell to the 10-seed range or worse. Iowa and Ohio State should be and need to be wins with the same being said for Nebraska. One win over either Purdue or Wisconsin in three chances would give them a top-25 win, something that could be lacking from their schedule by season’s end. Record: 18-11.

Win at Illinois
Win at Maryland

This is where it gets interesting as March is finally here and it’s time for Michigan State to go on its usual run leading up to the Big Ten tournament. Back-to-back road wins against solid competition would give the Spartans 20 wins in the regular season and a decent shot of dropping into the six/seven-seed range. Obviously, if they bow out in their first game in the Big Ten tourney, some of that changes, but two more wins could ensure they at least get a seven-seed.

As I’ve said over the last couple weeks, the path is there for 20 wins for this team, but reaching that is another story. According to the numbers at KenPom, MSU’s percentage chances of winning road games are as follows:

26% at Indiana (before Anunoby injury):
36% at Michigan
47% at Illinois
38% at Maryland

To reach 20 wins, I have them winning all of those games, so that’s something of an issue. With sporadic play, who knows what will happen in the coming weeks, but Tom Izzo knows what he’s doing so it’d be best not to count out this team just yet.

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