When you look at resumes, Michigan State basketball has to stand out because of its ability to take care of lesser opponents (outside of Indiana) and really take it to some top teams recently.
In fact, Michigan State went on the road to beat Illinois by double figures and then came home to handle Purdue by nine (should've been 12), and then went to Ann Arbor where the Spartans beat Michigan by 13. That's quite the three-game stretch which has improved the resume with three Quad 1 wins and a likely boost into this week's AP top 10.
Michigan State sits at 22-5 overall and 13-3 in the Big Ten which may very well be the second-toughest conference in the country.
And there's still room for Michigan State to add three more ranked wins.
According to analytics expert Evan Miyakawa, Michigan State now has the eighth-best "resume quality" in the country, a measure of how teams have performed against their schedule based on win and loss quality.
Let's take a look at the latest Resume Quality evals at https://t.co/cegyfz96ax, which measures how you've performed against your schedule based on Ws and Ls.
— Evan Miyakawa (@EvanMiya) February 24, 2025
Some takeaways:
- Florida and Duke the last 1 seeds, with Houston and Tennessee lurking
- St. John's should be a 2 seed… pic.twitter.com/afrureMPwy
Miyakawa also evaluated which seeds all of these teams on the resume quality list should receive and Michigan State was projected as a 1-2 seed, per his metrics.
Michigan State has four games left and if it can go 3-1 with another win over Michigan, the Spartans will lock up the Big Ten title. And if it does go 3-1, it'll finish the regular season 25-6 with three more Quad 1 wins, making that case for a No. 2 or No. 1 seed even more likely.
The Spartans need to make a strong push in these final two weeks if they want a safer path to a potential Final Four.