Michigan State basketball has chance to go on big second-half run in Big Ten play

A little over halfway through Big Ten play, Michigan State basketball is slightly over .500 with some big wins at Wisconsin, at Penn State, and at home against Rutgers and Iowa.

The Spartans also have some iffy losses to Northwestern (which doesn’t look so bad anymore) and at Illinois and at Indiana after holding comfortable leads. Those aren’t embarrassing losses, by any means, but they should have been wins. You could throw the home game against Purdue into that category as well. Michigan State is a few plays, and a Malik Hall, injury away from being 17-5 overall and 9-2 in conference play.

But the reality is that Michigan State is 14-8 and 6-5.

The second half of the season is going to be incredibly important for NCAA Tournament seeding and it’ll show if this team can finally live up to its potential and string together a handful of wins, showing that it can compete in March.

It has the opportunity to go on a big run.

Michigan State football completed its toughest stretch yet

If you’re worried about Michigan State making the tournament after a fourth loss in six games, don’t be. As of Sunday morning before the Purdue game, the Spartans were projected as a six seed by Joe Lunardi and Mike DeCourcy.

The 16-point loss probably drops them a line, but the roughest stretch of the conference season is officially in the rearview mirror.

Michigan State went to Wisconsin and Illinois, hosted Purdue and Rutgers, traveled to Indiana, and then hosted Iowa before going to Purdue. And the Spartans were in each one of those games and probably should have won each outside of the road game against Purdue. Instead, they finished that stretch with a 3-4 record. Not great, not a nightmare. Kind of expected.

Now, Michigan State has a winnable stretch ahead.

The Spartans will face Rutgers at Madison Square Garden this Thursday and then they’ll host Maryland. They’ll go to a Columbus to face a struggling Ohio State team, host a bad Minnesota team, travel to Ann Arbor to face an 11-10 Michigan team, get Indiana at home for a rematch, and then go to Iowa and Nebraska before ending the season with a home game against Ohio State.

Every single one of those games is winnable.

If Michigan State gets past Rutgers on Thursday, they could string together 5-6 straight wins if they can build on that. Rutgers is probably the toughest game left on the schedule followed by Ohio State, Indiana, and Iowa.

Should 9-0 be the expectation down the stretch with this talented team playing to its potential? Sure, but obviously that’s not realistic. This team should go somewhere in the ballpark of 6-3 in the final nine games and if that happens, they’ll likely finish in the top 3-4 in the Big Ten and earn a top-six seed in the NCAA Tournament.

It’s time to put the Purdue game in the rearview mirror and string together a big second-half run in the Big Ten.