If you’re new here, welcome to the annual late-January, early-February Michigan State basketball skid. Basically every year, Michigan State drops a couple of games in a row, sometimes even three straight, before righting the ship before a March run.
This year is no different, apparently.
Michigan State has lost two straight games after a 19-2 start, and it feels like everyone is turning on Tom Izzo and Co. Suddenly, Jeremy Fears has become the “dirtiest player in college basketball” while the Spartans can’t seem to avoid a 10-point early hole. Obviously Fears isn’t the dirtiest player, he’s just had two straight bad games, mentally. Michigan State does need to snap out of the slow starts, though. It’s been three straight games of that.
The Spartans can’t seem to get any respect lately, and that includes in the latest NCAA bracketology updates from respected bracketologists like Joe Lunardi.
After being a projected 2-seed, per Lunardi, in last week’s update before the Michigan game, on the verge of a 1-seed, Michigan State has dropped two entire seed lines in Saturday’s update.
— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) February 7, 2026
No, that’s not a typo, that says Michigan State is a 4-seed. After losing to a top-10 team and then a 10-12 team, Lunardi felt like that was enough to drop the Spartans two entire lines.
The overreactions to this latest skid are out of control.
Michigan State, currently, is not a 4-seed
If the skid continues, then yes, I could see Michigan State falling to a 4-seed. But I did see the other day that Michigan State already has enough Quad 1 wins that would qualify for a top-four seed in most seasons, and there are eight regular-season games left to add to that.
Michigan State just needs to beat Illinois on Saturday night to silence the doubters and get people to stop talking crazy, like tabbing the Spartans as a 4-seed after two losses.
This team is still 19-4. What are we doing?
Could things spiral out of control? Sure, if the Spartans don’t stop the bleeding, this could get even uglier, but a two-game skid should not be the difference between a 2-seed, borderline 1-seed, and a 4-seed. That’s just ridiculous.