Who knew that Michigan State’s loss to UCLA in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals would have essentially eliminated Tom Izzo and the Spartans from national title contention? Not me.
While I’m exaggerating a little bit, a key fact about all national champions over the past three decades surfaced on Twitter on Wednesday, and it doesn’t bode well for Michigan State.
The fact is that every single national champion since 1993 made their conference tournament’s semifinal. That would mean that the only Big Ten teams with a shot at winning the national title this year are Purdue, UCLA, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
100% of National Champions since 1993 have made it to their conference tournament semi-finals ✍️ pic.twitter.com/oXR9mEYF5q
— College Basketball Report (@CBKReport) March 18, 2026
Obviously there are exceptions to every trend and long streaks like these are made to be broken. Michigan State is obviously still going to have a shot at the national title, but it’s going to need to play its best basketball of the season over the next three weeks.
The Spartans are in a tough region with Duke, Kansas, UConn, UCLA, Louisville, and St. John’s, but they are good enough to hang with and beat every single one of those teams.
A lot of respected experts are picking Michigan State to advance to the Final Four and both Jay Bilas and Seth Greenberg have the Spartans playing for a national title.
This could very well be the year Tom Izzo wins No. 2, or gets eliminated in round one — he said so himself.
Michigan State faces an uphill battle in the East
Not only do the Spartans have to combat the devastating fact that they don’t meet the requirement that every single national champion has met since 1993, but they also have to face potentially several blue bloods if they want to make it out.
If Michigan State beats North Dakota State on Thursday, it’ll either face a tough Louisville team that might be without its second-best player or a red-hot South Florida squad. If the Spartans get past that game, they will be tasked with facing either UConn or a red-hot UCLA team. If they win that game, they’ll likely face Duke, Kansas, or St. John’s in the Elite Eight.
Every single round is a new gauntlet.