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The Michigan State Spartans’ final conference road game in Ann Arbor on Thursday night did not go quite as well as we had hoped. As a result, the Michigan Wolverines are the 2021 Big Ten Champs and Michigan State is still now quite squarely on the bubble. Fortunately, most pundits still seem to have MSU at least in the “Last Four In” category.

A win on Thursday would have been awesome. It would have very likely iced an NCAA Tournament bid and it possibly would have forced the Wolverines to get a win in East Lansing in order to hang a banner. That would have been fun, but unfortunately it was not meant to be.

But, as the old saying goes, “if first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” The Spartans may have been outclassed on Thursday, but when the teams meet again in East Lansing, there is at least a chance things will turn out differently.

If MSU can find a way to shoot the ball a bit better, scrap a little harder for rebounds and loose balls, and defend more effectively, the Green and White absolutely have a chance. Basically, the Spartans need to play like they did against Illinois and at Indiana. Is that going to be possible with so little cumulative rest over the past two weeks? It is hard to say, but never count out Coach Tom Izzo.

As we await the final game at the Breslin Center this year and as the Big Ten regular season draws to a close, let’s take one more look at the numbers to get a feeling of where things are headed, starting with the standings and expected wins.

Quick Odds Update

With so few games remaining and with the unbalanced schedule, the standings and win distribution matrix is not that useful anymore. So, for a final time this year, I will just show them here without much comment.

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings, as of March 5, 2021


Table 2: Big Ten regular season win distribution matrix


With the loss on Thursday night, the Spartans are guaranteed to finish below .500 in conference play for the first time ever in Tom Izzo’s career.

Big Ten Tournament Odds

With the Big Ten regular season race now officially over, we can turn the focus exclusively on the postseason, starting with the Big Ten Tournament. Table 3 below gives the updated Big Ten Tournament seeding odds.

Table 3: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds, as of March 5, 2021


We are starting to see a few teams locked into seeds. Michigan is now officially the No. 1 seed, Illinois is the No. 2 seed, and Nebraska is the No. 14 seed. Seven of the other seeds are determined with about a 70 percent level of certainty.

The No. 12 and No. 13 seed has yet to be sorted out, but those two teams will face each other anyway, so it is really just a question of jersey color. The No. 7 to No. 9 seeds are in the greatest flux, and Michigan State is right in the middle of the fray. So, it makes sense to break down those scenarios in more detail.

There are a grand total of only seven Big Ten games remaining on the schedule, and only five of them will impact MSU’s final seed and opponent. Those games are:

• Saturday, noon: Rutgers at Minnesota (+1)
• Saturday, 2:00 p.m.: Indiana at Purdue (-6)
• Sunday, 12:30 p.m.: Wisconsin at Iowa (-6.5)
• Sunday, 4:30 p.m.: Michigan at Michigan State (+11)
• Sunday, 7:00 p.m. Penn State at Maryland (-3)

The points spreads shown above are projected, based on Kenpom efficiency data. Based on these five games, there are a total of 32 different possible outcomes, which I have summarize below in Table 4. I am doing my best here to channel my inner “SpartanDan,” a mainstay of "MSU Twitter" who has provided similar data on Twitter for years.

Table 4: Michigan State Big Ten Tournament scenarios, with odds.


As you can see, it is really quite complicated. From a big picture point of view, there is a 76 percent chance that MSU will play in the No. 8/No. 9 seed game, which tips at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday. If MSU were to win that game, the Spartans would once again face Michigan. If at first you don’t succeed...?

As a general rule, if Purdue beats Indiana on Saturday, MSU is locked into the No. 8/No. 9 game. But, even if Indiana wins, it does not mean that the Spartans automatically drops to the No. 10 seed. There is still a roughly 15 percent chance that MSU would end up as No. 8 or No. 9 seed, but all of those scenarios involve MSU beating Michigan.

Regarding MSU’s possible opponent, there is roughly a 55 percent chance that it will be Rutgers, a 40 percent chance that it will be Maryland, and a five percent chance that it will be Wisconsin.

I should also note that I have highlighted the odds of the top-four most likely scenarios. It total, there is a 45 percent chance that one of those four scenarios will be the final outcome. The common theme with those scenarios are that Purdue, Iowa, and Michigan all win over the weekend. If this comes to pass, the Maryland versus Penn State game will determine MSU’s first Big Ten Tournament opponent. If Penn State wins, it will be Maryland and if Maryland wins, it will be Rutgers.

As for MSU’s chances against the three possible first opponents, the current projected spreads and odds on a neutral court would be:

• MSU (+6) vs. Wisconsin (27 percent odds for MSU to win)
• MSU (+3.5) vs. Maryland (36 percent)
• MSU (+3) vs. Rutgers (39 percent)

As it stands now, if all of the favorites win in the five games listed above, MSU will face Rutgers on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. in the No. 8/No. 9 seed game. As it would appear, this would give MSU the best possible chance to earn another victory and most likely extend the NCAA Tournament streak.

Remaining Questions

As the end of the regular season draws near, there are three questions on my mind about MSU basketball. In closing, I would like to explore those questions now.

1) Will Michigan State make the NCAA Tournament?

The answer is that only the committee really knows. Most pundits (including myself) have come to the conclusion that MSU likely needs just one more win to feel safe on Selection Sunday. If that win comes on Sunday against the Wolverines, that would be great. Otherwise, MSU would be wise to beat either Maryland or Rutgers on Thursday of next week.

That said, there is a part of me that thinks MSU might be safe already. The Spartans have more high quality wins and an equal or fewer number of bad losses than any other bubble team. Furthermore, several other bubble teams have taken bad losses over the last week or so, and it is not clear to me who would actually take MSU’s spot.

Boise State? The Broncos just lost three in a row, including a bad loss to Fresno State. Xavier? The Musketeers have lost two of their last three against Providence and Georgetown. Seton Hall? Losers of the last three. Utah State? St. Louis? I have a hard time imagining any of those teams jumping Michigan State. Furthermore, all of the bubble teams, by definition, will lose at least one more time in their conference tournament (or they would be the automatic qualifier). Those teams all will have limited chances to make up ground on MSU.

But, Michigan State’s NET ranking of 74 is very low, and it MSU loses out, a final record of 14-13 does not look great. That is the biggest concern right now. If the committee believes that overall record and the NET is important, MSU is in some trouble. If the committee is more interested in quality wins and recognizes that MSU has been impacted by COVID more so than other teams, then I think the Spartans may already be safe....but I would not bet on it.

2) Will Michigan State have enough time to rest up?

By the end of the day on Sunday, the Spartans will have played seven games over 16 days. It is easy to spot the signs of fatigue over the past few games. This team clearly has tired legs. Fortunately the gauntlet is almost over.

The Spartans will have a full three days off before starting the Big Ten Tournament just a few hours down the road in Indianapolis. Will this be enough time to fully (or even partially) recharge? While that is not a lot of time, it is more time than MSU has had since the game at Indiana, and it is certainly better than starting play on Wednesday.

Maybe after playing so many games on one or two days rest, a three-day break might feel like a week. Hopefully for at least a 40-minute span, the Spartans can regain some of the form that we saw against Illinois and Ohio State. A NCAA Tournament bid might just depend on it.

If MSU were to win that opening round game, the rest of the Big Ten Tournament is essentially gravy. If the Spartans were to lose on Friday to (most likely) Michigan, it would not be all bad. The extra rest would certainly be welcome.

If MSU does make the Tournament, the Spartans would then have at least five and as many as seven full days of rest before their first NCAA Tournament game, even if it is in the First Four, which starts on Thursday, March 18 this year. At this point, MSU would have perhaps only played one or two games in a span of 12 days. By then, the Spartans might look quite a bit different, and they might be quite a bit more dangerous.

3) Can Michigan State go on another run in March?

Let’s just assume for a moment that Michigan State does make it into the NCAA Tournament. Does this team have what it takes to go on a run? I will make the argument that it can.

We have already seen this team play at a very high level in several games this year. One of them was just last week against a potential No. 1 seed in Illinois. The Spartans then followed that up with a gritty win over another potential No. 1 seed in Ohio State.

While both of these games were at home, I have seen enough to believe that this team does have the capability to win more than one or two games in the NCAA Tournament. We all know that this team has flaws, especially at the point guard and center positions. We all know that this team struggles to shoot and to find anyone other than Aaron Henry to be a consistent option on offense.

However, we have also seen almost every member of the roster flash with some very high-level play. If the team is able to catch up on rest, get back into the practice gym, and find a way to get three or four guys peaking, then all of the sudden this becomes a very dangerous team that no one will want to face.

It is also certainly possible that MSU could be given a fairly advantageous seed. If MSU were to draw a No. 11 seed, at worse the Spartans would face a No. 6 seed (such as Oklahoma, USC, or Virginia Tech) and followed by a No. 3 seed (such as Florida State, Arkansas, or West Virginia). Granted, MSU would not be favored against ANY of those teams. But, let’s be honest, none of those coaches would be thrilled to see Tom Izzo in their bracket, either.

If MSU were to escape the first weekend (and get yet more rest), could the Spartans hang with a No. 2 seed? Well, Ohio State and Iowa are on the two-line right now, and MSU has shown that it can play with those teams in at least two of three chances. How about a No. 1 seed? See: Illinois, Breslin Center, Feb 23, 2021.

Of course, this is a very optimistic take on the future trajectory of this season. That is kind of my thing. I will also admit that, it certainly possible that the Spartans simply burned too much fuel over the past two weeks and have nothing left to give. A few days of rest might simply not be enough. We might not see this team win another game and I might need to create a new spreadsheet to simulate the NIT Tournament.

But, we have also seen Coach Izzo work his magic in March before. A few weeks ago, just talking about a tournament bid seemed like fantasy. I never gave up. You shouldn’t either.

That’s all for today. Until next time, Go State, Beat Michigan!

Just 12 days ago, Michigan State’s season seemed to be on the brink. The Spartans had just come off from back-to-back loses to Iowa and Purdue and were sitting 4-9 in conference play and just barely over .500 overall. Fans and pundits alike were lamenting about the loss of MSU’s NCAA Tournament streak, like it was a foregone conclusion.

But starting on a Saturday afternoon in Bloomington, Indiana, Michigan State’s season started to turn around. The Spartans have now won four of the last five games, and six of the last nine games. With Tuesday night’s thrilling (if ugly) win over the Hoosiers, once again, the Spartans now seem to be on a more positive brink, the brink of an NCAA Tournament bid.

I have been saying for weeks that getting to eight Big Ten regular season wins was a major milestone in the hunt for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid. Two weeks ago, getting to that number seemed like a long shot. Today, that milestone is in the rear view mirror.

So, what is next for the Michigan State basketball team? Once again, let’s dig into the numbers to see what we can learn about this final leg of the Big Ten regular season.

Quick Odds Update

Below are the updated enhanced Big Ten standings and Big Ten win distributions in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of March 3, 2021


Table 2: Big Ten win distribution as of March 3, 2021


In addition, today I will also show the visual of the Big Ten luck metric, which is based on the data shown above in Table 1.


Figure 1: Big Ten luck metric as of March 3, 2021

From the standings, we can see that MSU is now in ninth place in the the conference. From the odds distribution table, we can see that it is likely that the Spartans should stay in this part of the standings, even if the Green and White get swept by the Wolverines.

Indiana has less than a 30 percent chance to tie MSU in the win column, while Minnesota has less than a 20 percent chance. Both of these things would need to happen in order to MSU to fall behind those two teams in the standings and down to eleventh place. MSU would lose the tie-breaker to both teams due to winning percentage (Indiana is only playing 19 games) or head-to-head (Minnesota). Penn State, Northwestern, and Nebraska cannot pass MSU at this point.

For the win distribution table, we can now see the exact odds for the three possible results of the home-at-home series with Michigan. MSU has a one percent chance to win both, a 22 percent chance to split and a 77 percent chance to get swept. If we add the odds that Illinois beats Ohio State (53 percent) the results say that Michigan still has a 99.5 percent chance to win the Big Ten outright.

Finally, I will just point out that over the course of a month, the Spartans have moved from the least lucky team in the Big Ten to the most lucky. Based on expected value, MSU has now won a game-and-half more than it should have. While in reality this is likely a combination of actual luck and a newly found grit, it is certainly notable.

Big Ten Tournament Projections

If the season ended today, that would be weird, because only 125 total Big Ten games have been played (92 percent of the season). When ESPN, FOX, or the Big Ten Network show the graphic of the Big Ten Tournament seeds “if the season ended today,” it is more-or-less a meaningless exercise, because it is referencing a scenario that cannot exist in reality (an incomplete season).

It is far better to project the results of the remaining games to really understand what the final tournament bracket is likely to look like. I provide that data and analysis below in Table 3.

Table 3: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds, based on a Monte Carlo simulation of the rest of the season as well as what would happed if the currently favored teams won all remaining conference games


As I mentioned in my previous update, beating Indiana was huge because it virtually guarantees that Michigan State gets at least the No. 10 seed and thus does not have to start Big Ten Tournament play until Thursday in Indianapolis. For a team that is struggling with fatigue and tired legs, this is a big, big deal.

In addition, MSU will also now almost certainly play another team in the top 50 of the NET rankings, which means there will no longer be a concern about taking a “bad loss” before Selection Sunday. That is also a major positive.

At the top of the conference, the top three seeds are virtually settled as No. 1 Michigan, No. 2 Illinois, and No. 3 Iowa, with Purdue now with the upper hand to claim the No. 4 seed if the Boilermakers can take care of Indiana this weekend or if Illinois beats Ohio State. The bottom of the bracket is also almost fixed with Northwestern and Nebraska almost locked in to the bottom two seeds.

Seeds No. 6 to No. 12 are all still somewhat up for grabs. As for the Spartans, I have further broken down the odds for MSU’s potential seed and first round opponents below in Table 4:

Table 4: Odds for different first opponents for MSU in the Big Ten Tournament


Right now, the odds that Michigan State will face either Maryland or Rutgers on Thursday is almost identical at 34 percent, but the odds of a rematch with Maryland (27 percent) are not far behind. If MSU were to get very unlucky and fall to the No. 11 seed, the Spartans would almost certainly face Nebraska on Wednesday.

If all of the currently projected favorites win the remaining Big Ten games, Table 3 suggests that Michigan State will draw the No. 9 seed and face off with Wisconsin on Thursday.

Note that there are a very small number of other very low probability cases where MSU could face Indiana, Minnesota, or Northwestern first, but the odds of each of those scenarios is lower than a tenth of a percent.

Out of curiosity, I also ran a simulation of the results of the Big Ten tournament using the seeds for the mostly likely single scenario (where the favorites all win). The results of that simulation are shown below in Table 5.

Table 5: Simulated results of the Big Ten Tournament, assuming seeding if all of the projected favorites win the remaining regular season games.


Michigan State’s current Kenpom efficiency is still lagging behind some of the other Big Ten teams near MSU in the standings, and as a result, MSU’s projected odds are still vanishingly small 0.13 percent). That said, even if the Spartans can suddenly start playing as efficiently as a team like Wisconsin has, on average, the odds that the Spartans could win four games in four days are still likely less than five percent.

Tournament Dashboard

When I put all of this information together, I have my revised Tournament streak dashboard as shown in Figure 2:


Figure 2: MSU's NCAA Tournament streak dashboard, as of March 3, 2021

As usual, the data here is a mixed bag. Based on MSU’s Kenpom rating of No. 60 (and similarly low NET ranking of No. 71) there is certainly reason for concern. That said, the two other metrics that I set as benchmarks: the odds of going 8-12 or getting a top-10 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, have already been (mostly) cleared. So, which is it. Are the Spartans in or out?

The honest answer is that no one knows. Some pundits (such as ESPN’s Joe Lunardi) seem to have moved MSU back into the tournament from the bubble after the win over Indiana. Other pundits (such as Jerry Palm of CBS Sports) have had MSU safely in the field since the win over Ohio State.

But, the only people whose opinion really matters are the members of the actual NCAA Selection Committee and the metrics that they value seem to change slightly form year to year. If this committee believes that metrics such as the raw NET ranking and maybe Kenpom ranking are the most important, MSU could be in trouble still.

However, if they value quality wins, avoiding bad losses, winning on the road, and finishing in the top-10 of one of the most difficult leagues in the entire Kenpom era (since 2002), then Michigan State could be safe even now. Furthermore, if they consider that the Spartans’ performance was clearly negatively affected by the COVID-19 pause, much like teams are sometimes impacted by injuries, that could play in MSU’s favor.

If MSU were to win at least one more game, I would be shocked if they were left out of the NCAA Tournament. As such, I have replaced the odds to win the Big Ten Tournament in the dashboard with the odds that MSU wins at least one more game this year (including in the Big Ten Tournament, based on the data in the section above). Those odds are also now squarely at 50-50.

If you want my honest opinion, I think that Michigan State is already safe. But then again, I am an optimist. I would certainly feel a lot better about this prediction if MSU were to win one or two or three more games here in the regular season and/or the Big Ten Tournament. The next chance to achieve that goal will take place Thursday night in Ann Arbor.

Just to make things easier on the committee, I say we just go out and beat those Wolverines, possibly more than once. What do you say?

Go Green.

Lot of good stuff from Novak today, a lot of which I posted on the board. Here is an in-depth notebook. Watch the video if you have a chance, you'll be impressed with this level of energy, which is what you'd expect from a strength coach honestly. I like the fact that he honest with his assessment of where everything is at. Baseline being established and moving on from there. I like the focus on football specific movements.

I remember being at a camp within earshot of Mike Tressel and Luke Fickell talking about an MSU linebacker, and Tressel bragging about his bench press numbers, or something along those lines. Fickell wanted to know if that bench was gonna help him run sideline to sideline or something along those lines.

Novak wants numbers from his guys, but he wants them working on football and not just bulking up. Good stuff from Novak today.

After quite a bit of analysis over the last few days, I had come to a pretty simple conclusion regarding Michigan State’s NCAA Tournament odds. I felt that if MSU were to win just two more games, including any game in the Big Ten Tournament over a team seeded No. 10 and above, then the Spartans’ NCAA Tournament streak will continue.

Had MSU been able to rally and beat Maryland on Sunday, I would have felt quite confident that we would be seeing the name “Michigan State” appear on the board on Selection Sunday. But now? There is still quite a bit of uncertainty. The rest of the season will likely be a white-knuckle ride all the way to March 14.

This week’s game against flailing Indiana is about as close to a “must win” contest as I can remember in the last 20 years of MSU basketball. First of all, I think that it is critical that the Spartans get to at least eight wins in conference play to remain on the bubble. We would all sleep much, much easier getting to that number before the season ending home-at-home series with the Michigan Wolverines.

Second, the home game with Indiana may likely be the last non-quad-one game on Michigan State’s schedule, including the Big Ten Tournament. (Note that “quad-one” refers to the NET ranking of the opponent, which is adjusted based on the location of the game. A “quad-one” game involves an opponent in the top 30 of the NET if the game is at home, the top 50 if the game is at a neutral site, and top 75 if it is a road game.)

One of the major advantages that Michigan State has right now over other bubble teams is very low number of “bad,” non-quad-one losses. Losing to Indiana (currently ranked No. 59 in the NET) would be the second worse loss on MSU’s scheduled, behind the loss to the Northwestern Wildcats (No. 87 in the NET).

Quick Odds Update

But, before we worry about Indiana, let’s take another quick look at the abridged Big Ten odds, starting with the enhanced Big Ten standings and Big Ten win distribution show below in Tables 1 and 2:

Table 1: Enhance Big Ten standings as of March 1, 2021


Table 2: Big Ten win distribution matrix as of March 1, 2021

With the loss at Maryland, MSU’s expected win total is down to 7.65, meaning that it is only slightly better than a coin toss that the Spartans make it to eight wins. More precisely, the odds are 56 percent that MSU wins at least eight game and about nine percent that the Spartans make it up to nine wins or more.

Also note from the enhanced standings that MSU has now skyrocketed up to second place in the luck metric at +1.16, which is not far behind the University of Michigan’s luck rating of +1.55. Based on MSU’s overall performance, the Spartans now have one more win than their overall efficiency would suggest.

This could be interpreted that MSU really should be sitting at 6-11 right now, and the success over the past week was more fool’s gold than reality. The other interpretation is that MSU is cycling up (although not linearly) and that MSU’s average efficiency on the year is not indicative of its actual ability. Tuesday night we might learn which story is closer to reality.

Note also that Michigan’s odds to win the Big Ten title are now at 99.9 percent. There is only one scenario where Illinois would claim the title and that is the one where Illinois wins out (by beating Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday and then Ohio State in Columbus on Saturday) and Michigan were to also lose out. Personally, I would love to help the Wolverines out with that second part.

As always, the numbers above are derived from Kenpom efficiency data, which can be used to project the points spreads and odds for MSU’s upcoming games. The projected spreads and odds for the three games left on the schedule are:

• Indiana at MSU (even): 48 percent
• MSU (+15.5) at Michigan: 6 percent
• Michigan at MSU (+12): 12 percent

Right now, my math suggests that Indiana should be less than a point of a favorite in East Lansing, but the game is essentially a toss-up. That said, the actual line seems to have opened with MSU as a four-point favorite, which puts MSU’s odds to beat Indiana at closer to 65 percent. That feels a bit closer to the truth.

As for the two games against Michigan, the odds are slightly worse than the last update. The math suggests that Michigan State only has about a one-in-six chance to avoid the sweep at the hand of the Skunkbears.

Big Ten Tournament Projections

If there was any good news from this weekend, it is that the odds that MSU can earn at least the No. 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament actually improved since the win over Ohio State. The updated seeding odds are shown below in Table 3.

Table 3: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds, as of March 1


I now calculate a 63 percent chance that MSU can skip the Wednesday session at the Big Ten Tournament with the No. 10 seed or better. The odds of either a No. 9 or No. 10 seed are virtually equal.

In addition, I performed a few extra simulations on the Big Ten Tournament seeding to take a look at MSU’s possible opponents. The overall matrix is shown below in Table 4.

Table 4: MSU's Big Ten Tournament opponent scenarios


The single most likely scenario is for MSU to grab the No. 11 seed and face Nebraska on Wednesday. That would be a very, very bad outcome for MSU. Fortunately, the odds for MSU to earn the No. 9 or No. 10 seed are double those odds. If MSU gets the No. 10 seed, a rematch with Maryland is most likely on Thursday. If MSU get the No. 9 seed, then Rutgers is the most likely opponent. Interestingly, MSU’s odds to face Wisconsin are about 20 percent in both scenarios.

I also decided to break this down in a little more detail. If MSU does beat Indiana on Tuesday, here is what the updated odds and potential Big Ten Tournament matchups would look like:

Table 4: MSU's Big Ten Tournament opponent scenarios IF MSU beat Indiana on Tuesday


In this case, the odds for MSU to avoid a game on Wednesday suddenly shoot up to over 95 percent. MSU would have a 65 percent chance to earn the No. 9 seed where the most likely opponent would be Rutgers (54 percent odds), with both Maryland (26 percent) and Wisconsin (19 percent) in play.

If MSU were to beat Rutgers on Thursday, the Spartans would most likely lock up a NCAA Tournament bid and as a reward get to face No. 1 Michigan on Friday for the third time in nine days.

Note that MSU could rise up to get the No. 7 seed and face Indiana or Minnesota if the Spartans win out, but the odds of that outcome are about 0.1 percent right now, so I did not show those potential opponents in the table.

If MSU were to lose to IU, the odds table then looks like this:

Table 5: MSU's Big Ten Tournament opponent scenarios IF MSU loses to Indiana on Tuesday


In this scenario, MSU has only a 34 percent chance to avoid the Wednesday round in the Big Ten Tournament. In this case, the most likely outcome is for MSU to fall to the No. 11 seed and face Nebraska in that first round. A win there and the Spartans would face the No. 6 seed (likely Maryland or Wisconsin) on Thursday.

If Michigan State were to win that game, the Spartans would mostly draw No. 3 Iowa on Friday. If MSU loses out in the regular season, beating both Maryland/Wisconsin and then Iowa might be required to sneak into the NCAA Tournament.

However, the single most likely scenario still has MSU holding onto the No. 10 seed even if the Spartans lose out. If Penn State and Rutgers beat Minnesota and then Maryland beats Penn State (as the projected lines suggest will happen) then MSU would still be the No. 10 seed even if the Spartans finish at 7-13.

In this scenario, the Spartans would likely need to beat (most likely) No. 7 Maryland and then take out No. 2 Illinois on Friday to feel reasonably safe on Selection Sunday.

Tournament Dashboard

When I put all of this information together, I have my revised Tournament streak dashboard as shown in Figure 1:


Figure 1: MSU's NCAA tournament streak dashboard for March 1, 2021

With the loss at Maryland and the subsequent drop in MSU’s Kenpom metrics, the odds in three of the four categories has dipped. However, the recent losing streaks from the Indiana Hoosier and Minnesota Golden Gophers have resulted in an uptick in the Spartans’ odds based on the Big Ten Tournament seeding, which I do believe does matter.

In total, while I am still optimistic that this team will find a way to get the job done, somehow, this dashboard tells me that MSU’s current odds are right at or near 50 percent right now. Once again, it looks like it is going to be a white-knuckle ride all the way to the finish line.

That is all for today, on this first day of the Month of Izzo, 2021. Let’s hope that it is a good one this year. Until next time, enjoy, and Go State, beat the Hoosiers!

[Postscript]

I did all of this analysis wrote this piece prior to Rutgers' baffling loss at Nebraska. It is unclear yet how that impacts MSU's potential opponents and seeds, but Rutgers was a potential Q1 win at Breslin, and that is looking less likely now. MSU could definitely benefit from Rutgers righting the ship and beating Minnesota this weekend.

Another day, another set of brackets. For me, the month of March is by far the best sports month on the calendar. The college basketball regular season is winding down and the competition for banners is heating up. Teams are fighting each and every night for season titles, seeding, or simply their tournament lives.

For Michigan State fans, we are used to fighting for titles and seeding. This year, however, we find ourselves in the rare and uncomfortable position of fighting simply for an NCAA Tournament bid. A week ago, things looked bleak, but after beating a pair of Final Four caliber, top-five opponents in a 72-hour period, the script had flipped.

But then, just as when things were looking pretty bright, the Spartans struggled again in College Park and lost by 17 points to the Maryland Terrapins. As things stand right now (and things change quickly this time of year) the Spartans are squarely on the bubble. On Sunday morning, MSU was appearing in about 50 percent of the online brackets. By Monday morning, who knows?

Clearly, there is still work to be done, but MSU absolutely has a chance. If the Green and White can return to the level of play that they showed during the three-game winning streak, I am very confident that MSU will be in the NCAA Tournament. But nothing is guaranteed.

In order to get a better feel for what MSU needs to do to extend the streak, I have been breaking down the other teams in line to make the NCAA tournament, one set of conferences at a time. In the previous two posts, I broke down the Big Ten and the mid-majors.

As for the low-and-mid-majors, it looks like they will be contributing right around 30 teams to the NCAA tournament field, which leaves around 38 teams that come from the remaining six power/high-major conferences.

Let’s now take a closer look at each conference, starting with a quick update on the Big Ten

Big Ten

Table 1 below gives the current summary of the Big Ten tournament and bubble teams. The NET and Kempon rankings are current as of the morning of Sunday, Feb 28. The projected seeds come from the “consensus rankings” on the bracket matrix project website.

Table 1: NCAA Tournament resume comparison for teams in the Big Ten


I am currently confident that at least eight Big Ten teams are safely in the NCAA Tournament: Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State, Iowa, Purdue, Wisconsin, Rutgers, and Maryland. While it is possible the Rutgers and/or Maryland could collapse and lose out, which might put them on the bubble, this is unlikely. This leaves four teams on the bubble: Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan State, and Penn State.

Since I last gave an update on the Big Ten, all four teams have all taken loses, but only Michigan State has added some key victories. As a result, I think that Penn State and Minnesota have both now fallen off from the bubble entirely and Indiana is in trouble. I don’t see Indiana beating Purdue in the Hoosiers’ season finale, and if MSU beats Indiana as well, at 7-13, the Hoosiers will fall out of the Tournament.

I thought that Minnesota was going to be a threat to MSU as well, but after bad losses to Northwestern and Nebraska (Minnesota’s fifth loss in a row) and still no road or neutral court wins, I think the Gopher are basically done as well.

If Michigan State finishes clearly above Minnesota, Indiana, and Penn State as the ninth best team in the conference, I think that MSU would be pretty clearly in the NCAA Tournament. I realize that the committee is not supposed to really compare teams in the same conference in this way, but human nature is human nature and it is easiest to compare teams when they have common opponents. Nine teams feels like the minimum number of bids that the conference will receive.

This makes Tuesday night’s game against Indiana a virtual “must-win.” First, the committee might very well see it as an elimination game of sorts. Second, losing to Indiana at home, would essentially be another “bad loss” on Michigan State’s resume. If MSU were to lose to Indiana, I think the Spartans would need to split the series with the Michigan Wolverines to get back on the positive side of the bubble.

If the Spartans do beat Indiana, MSU looks to have a great chance to snag the No 9 or No. 10 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. That, in itself, is extremely valuable

Big 12

When it comes to the evaluation of bubble team in the power conferences, the Big 12 is far by the easiest in 2021. The resumes of the potential tournament teams are summarized below:

Table 2: NCAA Tournament resumes for teams in the Big 12


Basically, seven teams are safely in, and the other three are out. Unless there is a major upset in the Big 12 Conference Tournament and a team like TCU wins, the Big 12 has no impact on the bubble at all.

SEC

The tournament resumes for the teams in the SEC are shown below.

Table 3: NCAA Tournament resumes for teams in the SEC


The SEC seems fairly straightforward. Right now, a total of five teams seem safe: Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, LSU, and Missouri. The Missouri Tigers are only at .500 and have somewhat of a soft NET ranking (yet still better than MSU’s NET ranking), but they do have six quad-one wins and that makes them safe.

As of now, there are two teams that might be on the bubble: Kentucky and Ole Miss. Right now they are both clearly out and Kentucky is still well below .500 overall. Those two teams play each other on Tuesday, and the loser is likely done for good. It is possible that one of these teams could make a run to the SEC Finals and get into the bubble conversation, but a tournament bid for either team is not likely.

Pac-12

The tournament resumes for the teams in the Pac-12 are shown below in Table 4.

Table 4: NCAA Tournament resumes for teams in the Pac-12


Currently, USC, and Colorado seem quite safe and UCLA and Oregon look OK right now as well. The Ducks have several games left, and I could see them sliding into bubble trouble if they were to drop a couple of games (for example against UCLA and Arizona) and lose early in the Pac-12 Tournament. They are a team to watch.

As for the bubble, Stanford has been floating around on other side of the bubble for a few weeks. But, they have dropped two in a row, including a bad loss to Washington State and another one to Oregon State. They might be able to redeem themselves if the Cardinal were to beat USC on the road or make a run in the Pac-12 Tournament, but I think this is unlikely. Besides, does the Pac-12 deserve five bids? No. I don’t think so.

If the top-four teams in the Pac-12 are all playing in the Pac-12 semifinals, I think four bids is it.

Big East

The tournament resume for the teams in the Big East are shown below in Table 5.

Table 5: NCAA Tournament resumes for teams in the Big East


Right now, Villanova and Creighton are quite safe, but the other three teams are clearly on the bubble. The consensus is that Xavier, Seton Hall, and UCONN are all in, but the position of all three teams is tenuous at best. All three teams have more bad losses than good wins, which is never a good sign. Xavier did pick up a big win over Creighton this weekend, but I would think MSU would compare very favorably against all three of these team.

If nothing else, only four of these teams can make the Big East semifinals. I have to wonder if the odd team out will be NIT bound.

ACC

The tournament resume for the teams in the ACC are shown below in Table 6.

Table 6: NCAA Tournament resumes for teams in the ACC


Of the six power conferences, the ACC is the one that it the most difficult to handicap. Right now, Florida State, Virginia, and Clemson seem to be safely in. Virginia Tech also seems to be safely in, but if I honesty look at the Hokies’ resume, is it that much better than MSU’s right now?

After that, there are a group of five teams that are all in various stages of on the bubble. Syracuse lost to Georgia Tech on Saturday and that puts them on life support, but the Orange do have two games remaining against North Carolina and Clemson and could possibly get back onto the bubble.

As for the other four teams: North Carolina, Duke, Georgia Tech, and Louisville, they are all pretty much a toss-up and they actually have several games against each other remaining (Duke at North Carolina, Duke at Georgia Tech, and North Carolina at Duke). In addition Louisville has games left at Virginia Tech and versus Virginia, which are both possible resume builders. On Saturday, Louisville got a win at Duke to earn the team’s first quad-one victory, while Duke is now up to six non-quad one losses to only one quad-one win.

Of these four bubble teams, I have a hard time believing that more than two deserve to be the NCAA Tournament, but there might be room for three. Right now, in my opinion, North Carolina and Georgia Tech have a slight edge based on quality wins and bad losses. Is Michigan State’s resume worse than any of those four teams? I would argue that it is not, and MSU does have the head-to-head win against Duke. Those four teams combined barely have more of quad-one wins than MSU.

This is a situation where I think the ACC Tournament is going to be very important. If one of those bubble teams lose early, they are likely done. But at the end of the day, how many bids does the ACC really deserve? Six or seven at the maximum feels right.

Adding it all up

If I look at the full landscape, this is what I see:

• Low Majors: 15 automatic bids
• Mid Majors: 10 automatic bids, plus around five or six at-large teams from the A-10, Mountain West, the Missouri Valley, and the West Coast Conference.
• Big 12: Seven teams are in, and no one is on the bubble
• SEC: Six teams are safe, plus two unlikely bubble teams (Kentucky and Ole Miss)
• Pac-12: Four teams are safe and Stanford is an unlikely bubble team
• Big East: Two teams are safe, while three bubble teams (UCONN, Seton Hall, and Xavier) with a solid chance
• ACC: Four teams are safe, and additional five teams (UNC, Duke, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Syracuse) on the bubble
• Big Ten: Eight teams are safe with four other teams on the bubble. Of those four, MSU is quickly starting to look like the best option, but that could change on Tuesday.

The total number of teams that seem completely safe are 56. I will add BYU, Drake, and a second team from both the A-10 (VCU) and Mountain West (Boise State) to get to 60 as those teams all seem mostly safe as well. This leaves a grand total of eight slots, for most likely the following 10 teams:

• Michigan State
• North Carolina
• Duke
• Louisville
• Georgia Tech
• UCONN
• Seton Hall
• Xavier
• Colorado State
• Wichita State

Right now, even with Sunday’s loss at Maryland, Michigan State’s tournament resume is comparable to all 10 of those teams. The Spartans have the most quality wins and are tied with the least number of bad losses. A loss to Indiana would tarnish Michigan State’s resume, but as long as MSU beats Indiana, I am starting to feel very confident. That said, here are some potential problems to watch out for:

• Houston getting upset in the AAC tournament
• A team other than VCU or Saint Bonaventure winning the A-10 tournament
• A team other than Drake or Loyola winning the Missouri Valley tournament
• Stanford making a late push in the Pac-12
• Ole Miss or Kentucky winning or making a strong push in the SEC tournament
• Syracuse making a late push in the ACC tournament

As I look at all of the teams and all of the data, my conclusion is this: if Michigan State wins just two more games total (in the remainder of the regular season OR the Big Ten Tournament) then I think the Spartans are in the tournament, perhaps even comfortably. If MSU wins just one more game, it will be a white-knuckle ride all the way to Selection Sunday. If MSU wins three games or more, then it is time to talk about seeding.

That said, the biggest unknown right now is the selection committee itself. How will they consider the impact that COVID-19 and the disjointed, incomplete, and unbalanced schedules? If the committee looks at good wins and bad loses, then MSU is in very good shape, possibly even with a loss to Indiana.

However, if the committee instead relies on rankings such as Kenpom or the NET and sees MSU not-so-pretty conference schedule, the Spartans could be in trouble, even if they do win two more games. I think that this is the less likely option, but it is certainly one that we can’t rule out.

Either way, Selection Sunday is just two weeks away, and the Spartans still have their fate in their own hands.

I didn’t see it. Did we ever come close to scoring?

When it comes to the NCAA Tournament field, the discussion will often revolve around numbers. Pundits and bracketologists will talk about total records, quality wins, and bad losses. But, at the end of the day, there is really only one number that actually matters for the NCAA Tournament.

That number is 68.

A total of 68 teams will be invited to play in the NCAA Tournament. A total of 31 of those 68 teams will get automatic bids based on winning their conference tournament. This is down one from most years, as the Ivy League decided not to play in 2020-21. As a result, there are a total of 37 teams that the Selection Committee will pick to place into the bracket.

Right now, Michigan State is not projected to be one of those 37 teams in most brackets. But after the pair of wins over No. 5 Illinois and No. 4 Ohio State this week, the momentum is building that MSU might just be able to play themselves onto the bubble and then into the Tournament. In order to understand MSU’s chances, we need to attempt to count to 68.

In a recent post, I went through the Big Ten conference in some detail. Right now, six of the Big Ten teams are safely in the field (Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State, Iowa, Purdue, and Wisconsin), six additional teams are on or near the bubble (Maryland, Rutgers, Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan State, and Penn State) and the remaining two schools (Northwestern and Nebraska) are out unless they win the conference tournament.

The Big Ten is widely considered to be the best conference in the country, and so a total of nine or 10 teams are likely to make the NCAA Tournament. But, that will also depend largely on what happens in the other 30 conference races and tournaments. Today, I will start to take a closer look at the national competition, focusing on the low- and mid-major conferences.

Low Majors (One-Bid Leagues)

The easiest place to start counting is with the set of conferences that I will call “low majors.” This term is arbitrary, but for my purposes, I will define low majors as the conferences where there is no realistic chance that this conference could produce an at-large team. In other words, these conferences will only contribute one team to the field of 68.

As of today, I count a total of 15 of the 31 eligible conferences in this category. they are listed below (with the current NET system top-rated team in parenthesis):

• America East (Vermont)
• Atlantic Sun (Liberty)
• Big Sky (Weber State, who I am still mad at for 1995...they know what they did.)
• Colonial (James Madison)
• Horizon (Wright State)
• MAC (Toledo)
• Metro (Siena)
• Mid-Eastern (Morgan State)
• Northeast (Bryant)
• Southern Conference (Furman)
• Southland (Abilene Christian)
• Summit (South Dakota State)
• Sun Belt (Georgia State)
• SWAC (Prairie View A&M)
• WAC (Grand Canyon)

Basically, these 15 conferences will provide the Tournament with the collection of No. 13 to No. 16 seeds that we will all root for in the first two days to pull the big upset. The conference tournaments will be fun to watch, but the outcomes will have no impact on the fate of MSU.

Potentially Problematic Mid-Majors

Every year there is are a handful of teams from mid-major conferences with very good records and eye-catching NET (or previously, RPI) rankings. If these teams win their conference tournaments, there is no issue. But, if these teams get upset in their conference tournaments, they become possible “bid stealers.” In other words, they might take a slot in the tournament that might otherwise go to a high-major bubble team like Michigan State.

This year I count a total of five conferences and six teams to keep an eye as we approach Championship Week. Table 1 below summarizes the Tournament resumes of these six teams along with MSU’s current resume.

Table 1: NCAA Tournament resumes for MSU and notable mid-majors teams


In this table, I have included what I believe to be the most relevant data with which we can compare teams that are on the bubble or for general seeding purposes: overall record, conference record, NET ranking, Kenpom ranking, “quad one” wins, and non-quad one losses (i.e. “bad” loses).

I have also included the current projected seed and the percentage of online brackets that each team appears in, according to the bracket matrix website. Finally, the table lists the best wins and worst loses for each team, with the opponent’s NET ranking in parenthesis.

The first four teams after Michigan State in the table all have some similar attributes. They all have very good records, and respectable NET and Kenpom rankings. But, they have essentially no quality wins at all. In fact, none of those four teams have even played in a game with a quad one opponent.

In a normal year, teams like Winthrop and Belmont would have had a few non-conference games against better quality opponents. It is certainly possible that either or both of these teams would have been able to pad their resume. But as they stand now, I would be shocked if any of those four teams would earn an at-large bid.

Then again, I wouldn’t rule it out entirely. There are some years where the Selection Committee just seems to favor a certain philosophy over another. If this particular group of people want to reward the “little guy” who had a great season, but faltered in their conference tournament, then they might do just that. I think that this is highly unlikely, but who knows the impact that COVID-19 will have on the overall selection process. Just to be safe, I would root for those four teams to win their conference tournaments.

These two teams from the Missouri Valley conference, Loyola-Chicago and Drake, are in a different category. They also both have great records and very respectable NET and Kenpom rankings. They split the series with each other, which gives each team a quad one win.

Both teams also have four total quad-two wins by virtue of beating up on Indiana State and Missouri Sate in conference play. However, I will note that Loyola played in two other games versus more serious competition: Wisconsin and Richmond, but lost both games. Drake has not played in any other quad one games.

Right now, the Bracket Matrix has both teams safely in the tournament and far enough up on the seed line that they would likely make it in as at-large teams. While I could see the argument that neither team actually has a quality win (other than beating each other) I agree that it is likely that both teams, and especially Loyola, will wind up in the field of 68.

For a team like Michigan State, the best case scenario would be for one of the two teams, most likely Drake, to tank late in the season and then lose very early in the conference tournament. But, each team only has two regular season games left, so this is very unlikely. If Drake were to lose early in the Missouri Valley Tournament, the Bulldogs might fall out of the tournament, but I doubt it.

The worst case scenario would be for both team to get upset in the conference tournament, which could result in a total of three bids for the Missouri Valley. But, that might also prompt the committee to drop Drake in favor of the Missouri Valley champion.

In summary, these group of five conferences are likely to contribute five to seven additional teams to the NCAA Tournament, but the number is mostly likely six. This brings the total number of teams up to 20 to 22, but most likely 21.

Other Mid-Major Conferences

Next I would like to examine group of five conferences where multiple teams may be in play for an at-large bid. Let’s start with the American Athletic Conference (AAC) and Atlantic 10 Conference, as summarized in Table 2.

Table 2: NCAA Tournament resumes for relevant teams in the AAC and A10, compared to MSU


For this pair of conference, there are a total of eight teams in play for NCAA Tournament bids. Clearly, these two conferences will contribute at least two teams to the field as automatic qualifiers, but right now only Houston is a lock for a bid.

Because of this situation, the AAC is one of the more dangerous conferences to a team like MSU. As long as Houston wins the postseason tournament, then MSU can compete directly with a team like Wichita State for an at large-bid. If Houston falters in the AAC tournament, the bubble reduces in size by one.

The comparison of MSU to Wichita State is an interesting one. According to the Bracket Matrix, from a composite point of view, the Shockers are the “last team out” and appear in over half of the published brackets included in their matrix. Prior to MSU’s win over Ohio State, the resumes of the two teams are similar in terms of rankings and quality wins and losses. MSU’s record is the biggest concern.

With MSU’s win over Ohio State, a comparable NET rating, a better Kenpom rating, and over twice as many quad-one wins, MSU should pass Wichita State on the seed line. The Shockers will only have one more chance to beat a quality team and that would be a match-up with Houston in the AAC Tournament. If the Shockers win that game, it is likely that they will earn the automatic bid anyway.

As for SMU and Memphis, both teams’ rankings are similar to Michigan State’s rankings and like MSU, neither team appears in more than a few online brackets. Both SMU and Memphis lack any quad one wins, but Memphis does face Houston at the end of the season and could face the Cougars again in he AAC Tournament. Similar to Wichita State, as long as MSU can get to at least eight regular season wins, the Spartans should rise above these two teams on the seed list by Selection Sunday.

Table 2 also gives the Tournament resume for the top four teams in the Atlantic 10 conference. Unlike the AAC, there is no single team that has separated themselves from the rest of the league. That said, right now VCU and Saint Bonaventure both have better records and rankings than Saint Louis and Richmond. The current consensus is that VCU and Saint Bonaventure are both in, while Saint Louis and Richmond are out. I suspect that two A-10 teams will see their names on the board on Selection Sunday.

That said, none of the Atlantic 10 teams have any eye-popping wins and they all have losses outside of the top 100 of the NET. There is no chance for any of the teams to pick up quality wins other than by beating VCU or the Bonnies in the conference tournament. If VCU and St. Bonaventure meet in the A-10 Final, I think that both teams will likely make the tournament. If either team were to pick up another bad loss in the next two weeks, I could also see them sliding off the bubble.

Once again, if Michigan State is able to get to at least 8-12 with a few more quad one wins, I think that it is feasible to pass the A-10 teams on the seed line, especially the teams that do not win the A-10 Tournament. I would make the argument that MSU should be above those teams now. MSU’s record and NET ranking is the biggest roadblock and those numbers will improve if MSU keeps winning.

The other side of the coin is that if a team other than VCU or Saint Bonaventure wins the A-10 Tournament, it is possible that the conference could get up to three NCAA Tournament bids, but this seems unlikely.

Let’s now turn our attention to the final set of mid-major conferences: Conference USA, the Mountain West, and the West Coast Conference (WCC).

Table 3: NCAA Tournament resumes for relevant teams in Conference USA, the Mountain West, and the West Coast Conference, compared to MSU


The situation in Conference USA is pretty simple. Initially, it looks like there are several teams that might be candidates for at-large bids. However, the current NET rankings are not as strong as teams in the A-10, for example. There is a chance that Western Kentucky could steal a bid if the Hilltoppers were to falter in the Conference USA Tournament, but it is unlikely. This is almost certainly a one-bid league.

The situation in the Mountain West in interesting. San Diego State has a good record and rankings. The Aztecs appear to be in safely, but they have no quad one wins (although wins versus UCLA and Boise State are notable). Boise State and Colorado State have good records and solid rankings as well, and the consensus is that both teams with be in the tournament. Utah State is a half-step back and generally considered to be on the wrong side of the bubble.

My gut feeling here is that MSU is within striking distance of both Boise State and Colorado State, but likely not San Diego State. MSU still trails the two teams in the NET, but has much higher quality wins and a higher Kenpom ranking. I also think that the committee might simply take the two Mountain West teams that make the conference championship game. If a team not on the list above were to win the tournament, I think that the conference could get three bids, but two feels more likely.

Finally, that leaves the West Coast Conference. Clearly, Gonzaga is safely in, and BYU’s record and metrics also look strong as well. The next best team in the conference, Saint Mary’s College does appear in exactly one bracket online, but the Gaels are clearly a distant third. As long as either Gonzaga or BYU win the WCC Tournament, this is a two-bid league and MSU’s fate is not impacted.

So in summary, here is our tally so far:

• Low Majors: 15 bids
• “Problematic” Mid-Majors: possible 5 or 7, but most likely 6 bids
• Other Mid-Majors: most likely 8 or 9 bids, but it could be as few as 6 or as many as 10 bids

The most likely number of bids from these conferences appears to be about 30 total. However, I could see the number being as low as 26 or as high as 32.

So, that leaves a total of around 38 bids that can come from the six high-major “power” conferences: the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-12, and the SEC. Will MSU be among those teams? That depends a lot on how the Spartans play over the next two weeks. But, it also depends a lot on the how many other high-major teams play themselves onto or off from the bubble. But that is an analysis for another day.

Can we please give up hockey and restart our lacrosse program? The Minnesota women's team could beat what we put on the ice. It's next year or bust for Cole...no excuses.

I had totally forgotten about this, but I ran across the tournament resume for Ohio State in 2019. Here is what I have:

Kenpom: 44
NET: 55
Record: 19-14 overall, 8-12 in conference play
Q1 Record: 4-10 [with wins @ Cincinnati (25th in the NET) in their first game of the season, @ Nebraska (48), @ Creighton, and @ Indiana (53)]
Other "notable" wins: Iowa (No. 10 seed) and Minnesota (No. 10 seed) in Columbus => their only wins over Tournament teams
Bad (non-Q1) Losses: Syracuse (43), @ Rutgers (100), Illinois (109), @ Northwestern (88)
They beat Indiana in the first game of the BTT, then lost to MSU.

OSU wound up as a No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament and they upset No. 6 Iowa State in the first round.

Also, based on Kenpom's data, the Big Ten is much stronger in 2021 than in was in 2019.

Even if MSU wins just one more game, out resume this year is better than OSU's was in 2019. There is no doubt of that. Each year is different, of course, but 68 teams is 68 teams.

MSU is being hurt by the ugly NET and depressed Kenpom efficiency due to a handful of (mostly) COVID related stinker games. Each game is also weighted more this year simply because there are fewer games. But, if you look at who MSU actually beat and who MSU actually lost to... MSU should be in and there should be no question after Thursday. None.

Then, imagine if MSU had beaten Purdue and was currently 8-8. Where would MSU be? Safely in the Tournament, that's where. Granted, MSU can't go out and lose five straight or anything, but serious, two more wins, including the BTT, should do it.

Another day, another win over a top-five opponent! Less than a week ago, Michigan State’s odds to make the Tournament were around 10 percent, at best. But now that the Spartans have racked up three straight high-quality wins, the world is suddenly a much different place.

How much did the win over the Buckeye boost the Spartans’ chances? Today I wanted to provide yet another abridged Big Ten odds update, starting with the Big Ten win distribution show below in Table 1:

Table 1: Big Ten win distribution matrix as of Feb 26, 2021


For the first time in weeks, Michigan State’s expected win total is now over eight wins, which I believe is clearly the threshold to get back into the bubble conversation. The odds that MSU can reach that threshold are now at 73 percent. The odds to get to 9-11 or better stand at 27 percent. If you want to dream bigger, the odds to get back to .500 are now at four percent.

As always, the numbers above are derived from Kenpom efficiency data, which can be used to project the points spreads and odds for MSU’s upcoming games. The projects spreads and odds for the four games left on the schedule are:

• MSU (+5) at Maryland: 31 percent
• Indiana at MSU (even): 49 percent
• MSU (+14) at Michigan: 8 percent
• Michigan at MSU (+10.5): 15 percent

While Michigan State is projected to be a slight underdog or even in the next two games, with MSU’s current momentum, you have to feel good about MSU chances, fatigue notwithstanding. As for the pair of games against Michigan, right now the math says MSU has a 22 percent chance to at least split that series.

As for the Big Ten Tournament, the odds are improving for MSU to escape play on the opening day by earning a top-10 seed. Table 2 below shows the current odds for each team to earn each seed.

Table 2: Big Ten Tournament Seeding odds as of Feb 26, 2021


With Indiana, Minnesota, and Penn State fading down the stretch, MSU has now moved into 10th place in this table with over a 56 percent chance to earn at least the No. 10 seed. That said, the No. 11 seed is the single most likely seed for MSU. In the scenarios where MSU beats Indiana, the odds to get at least the No. 10 seed rise to 85 percent. If I put all of this data together with the historical Kenpom data, I have an update for my NCAA Tournament streak dashboard:


Figure 1: MSU's tournament streak dashboard, based on selected performance metrics

Three of the four main metrics now suggest that MSU has over a 50 percent chance to make the NCAA Tournament. Note that MSU’s odds to win the Big Ten Tournament are still extremely low. In this case, I even set the Spartans as the No. 10 seed to see how much of a difference that makes. It does not move the needle by much.

That said, I will throw just a little bit of cold water on this analysis. First, of the four main metrics shown in Figure 1, the lowest one, Kenpom ranking, might be more predictive. While MSU’s current efficiency margin is pretty solid, the fact remains that the Tournament can only accommodate 68 total teams, so a ranking is a better measure of the number of teams that MSU is competing with for a Tournament spot.

Furthermore, as for the odds of MSU getting to 8-12 or earning a top-10 seed in Big Ten Tournament, the fact also remains that MSU will likely need to win at least one game in the Big Ten Tournament. MSU’s first game will likely also be somewhat of a toss-up, which suggest the actual odds are half of what is shown in the Figure, which also is consistent with the odds suggested by the Kenpom ranking.

But, MSU is also playing better now than the Kenpom efficiency margin numbers might suggest. So, my gut says that 50-50 odds sound just about right. While MSU’s current NET rating of No. 68 is also very underwhelming, the Spartans do have five high-quality “quad one” wins, which is more than all but 13 other teams.

At the end of the day, while the Spartans still need to win a few more games, extending the current NCAA Tournament streak is now very much in MSU’s grasp.

As February winds down and March approaches, the Michigan State Spartans basketball team is in uncharted waters. The Spartans have not been close to the NCAA Tournament bubble since 2011, almost always putting together strong seasons, but as of now MSU is clearly on the wrong side of it in 2021.

However, over the last two games. A more familiar version of the Spartans is starting to emerge. I have been saying for weeks that there is still a good or even a very good team in that locker room somewhere. I expected that we would see it a few times before the end of the season. The question was whether that team would emerge before it was too late to matter. We saw that team on Tuesday night against Illinois

The huge win over the Illini certainly has given MSU fans reason to believe that yet another late February and March run may be possible. The Spartans are now much closer to being back on the bubble than they have been in weeks. The question on every MSU fan’s mind right now is simple: will MSU be able to claw back into NCAA Tournament?

As the Big Ten season has progressed, I have been providing periodic updates on the odds for the Big Ten race. For today, I will give an abbreviated version of that update. For now, let’s just focus on the metrics that will most likely impact MSU’s chances to make the Tournament: the expected number of wins, the Big Ten Tournament seeding odds, and what Kenpom efficiency data is telling us.

Brief Odds Update

Following the big win over Illinois, here is the updated Big Ten win distribution matrix.

Table 1: Big Ten win distribution matrix as of Feb 24, 2021


MSU’s expected conference win total is now up to 7.3. Based on the Spartans’ current Kenpom efficiency and projected point spreads, I estimate about a 40 percent chance that MSU will get to eight wins, and a 10 percent chance that MSU can make it to 9-11.

As for the Big Ten Tournament seeding odds, Table 2 give an update on those calculations.

Table 2: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds, as of Feb 24, 2021


For several reasons, it is very important that MSU can rise up at least the No. 10 seed in the conference tournament. First, from an optics view point, it will be critical that MSU is viewed as one of the best-10 teams in the conference. For weeks, pundits have been projecting that nine or 10 Big Ten teams will make the Big Dance.

Second, the No. 10 seed in the Big Ten Tournament will earn a first round bye and be able to start play on Thursday instead of Wednesday. This avoids a potentially deadly bad loss on Wednesday, and gives the team one more day of rest, which at that point MSU will desperately need.

The current math now gives MSU a 21 percent chance to earn the No. 10 seed or better and a 60 percent chance of earning at least the No. 11 seed. Considering the large gap between projected No. 13 seed Northwestern and No. 14 seed Nebraska, even just moving up from the No. 12 seed to the No. 11 seed is an important improvement for MSU.

Finally, if I combine the information above with the current Kenpom efficiency data, the updated NCAA Tournament dashboard is shown below in Figure 1.


Figure 1: MSU's NCAA Tournament bubble dashboard.

This data certainly looks better than it did on Monday, but it is still a bit discouraging. Based on the data shown Figure 1, I would estimate that MSU’s current odds to make the NCAA Tournament are up to around 30 percent.

While I rely heavily on this data, it is time to point out a few caveats. First, all of these calculations above are assuming that MSU is exactly as good as their current Kenpom efficiency data suggests, which is an average of MSU’s performance over the past 21 games.

But, I would posit that the Michigan State team that played over the last week is a lot better than MSU’s average performance so far this year. If MSU can maintain this level of play (or close to it) the actual odds of MSU dancing are higher than what is shown in Figure 1.

Second, even in a normal year, there is no clear set of performance targets or metrics that we can point to in order to decide if a team is “in” or “out.” Total record, conference record, quality wins, bad losses, recent momentum, NET rankings, and efficiency rankings (such as the analysis above) all factor directly or indirectly. This year, the committee has the additional task of figuring out how COVID has affected each team how to weight that impact, if at all.

At the end of the day, unless a team wins their conference tournament, it is simply up to a group of human beings to make the judgement call as to whether your team in one of the 36 most worthy teams left on the board on Selection Sunday. Michigan State is not competing against numbers. The Spartans are competing with a group of other bubble team.

As such, a more complete analysis must involve a direct comparison of the resumes of other teams. Over the next few days, I would like to explore this subject in more detail, starting with the other teams in the Big Ten.

The Big Ten Bubble

If I were on the committee, one of the first things that I would do would be to compare the Big Ten bubble teams to each to other in order to look for signs of separation. As I look at the standings, there are six Big Ten teams with at least 10 conference wins who appear to be safely in the tournament right now: Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State, Iowa, Purdue, and Wisconsin.

Then there is a group of six teams who are short of 10 wins and are more-or-less in competition with MSU (6-9) for an at-large tournament bid. Those teams include Maryland (8-9), Rutgers (8-9), Indiana (8-9), Minnesota (6-10) and Penn State (4-11). Northwestern and Nebraska already have 13 losses or more and would need to win the Big Ten Tournament to get in, which is extremely unlikely.

Let’s now look at the resume and likely trajectory of each of those six teams.

Maryland (8-9), NET Ranking: 30, Q1 wins: 5, Non-Q1 losses: 1

They have good wins (Q1 a.k.a. “quad one”) at Wisconsin (19), at Illinois (4) at Rutgers (31), vs. Purdue (26) and at Minnesota (61), and their only “bad loss” (i.e. non-quad one loss) is versus Rutgers (31), which barely qualifies and may change by Selection Sunday. Note that the numbers in parenthesis are the current NET rankings for each team as of Feb 24.

The Terps close versus MSU (75), at Northwestern (96), and versus Penn State (40) and none of those games would currently be classified as “quad one”. Maryland is currently projected as a No. 10 seed by the bracket matrix project website. It is likely that Maryland ends up with 10 or 11 wins, so it will be tough for MSU to jump them on the seed line or in the standings, even if MSU were to win in College Park this Sunday.

That said, a 9-11 MSU team with a head-to-head win over the Terps and a pair of late season top-10 wins just might do that. Even so, the best case scenario for MSU would be to beat Maryland head-to-head, have Maryland get upset at Northwestern or versus Penn State, and then flame out early (perhaps against MSU) in the Big Ten Tournament.

Rutgers (8-9), NET Ranking: 31, Q1 wins: 4, Non-Q1 losses: 1

The Scarlet Knight split with MSU and hold wins versus Illinois (4), at Maryland (30), at Indiana (54), and versus Purdue (26). Their only “bad loss” was ironically at MSU (75). Rutgers closes with games versus Indiana (54) at Nebraska (145) and at Minnesota (61) to end the season. A win at Minnesota would be an additional quad one win.

Right now, Rutgers projects as a No. 8 seed and as a favorite in all three remaining games. However, the contests against Indiana and Minnesota both project as near toss-ups. Odds are that Rutgers gets the split and will finish at 10-10. If MSU can get to 9-11 and outperform Rutgers in the Big Ten Tournament, I could see MSU viewed in a similar light to Rutgers.

Indiana (7-8), NET Ranking: 54, Q1 wins: 3, Non-Q1 losses: 3

The Hoosiers already lost once to the Spartans, and if the talk of Michigan State making the NCAA Tournament is to continue, MSU needs to beat Indiana again next week. Period. The Hoosiers marquee wins on the season both came against Iowa (5) and they have an additional quality win versus Maryland (30).

Indiana’s “bad” losses came versus Rutgers (31), Michigan State (75), and Northwestern (96) all at home. The Bracket Project current has Indiana as a No. 12 seed and in the play-in game, but right now, their tournament resume does not look that much better than MSU’s resume, especially if the Spartans can sweep the Hoosiers.

Indiana will play a total of 19 conference games and will close the season with games at Rutgers (31), versus Michigan (3), at Michigan State (75), and at Purdue (26). Right now, they are only projected to be a favorite at MSU, and after the Spartans’ win over Illinois, even that is in doubt. The odds suggest the Hoosiers will only win one or two more games, but 0-4 is a very really possibility. That said, any remaining win would be a quad one win.

If MSU beats Indiana, they will likely finish Big Ten play at 8-11 if not 7-12 and the Spartans would have a great chance to pass them both in the standings and on the seed line.

Minnesota (6-10), NET Ranking: 61, Q1 wins: 4, Non-Q1 losses: none

The Gophers have been really good at home. They have wins over Michigan (3), Iowa (5), Ohio State (7), and Purdue (26) at The Barn. Their worst loss was at Indiana (54) which is still quad one. They also beat MSU badly in the one and only meeting of the year.

But, here is the weird part. Minnesota has not won a single game away from home this year. Not one. This is not something that the committee usually looks kindly on. As of today, Minnesota projects as a No. 12 seed, also as one of the last teams in.

As for their home stretch, the Gophers are not exactly facing murderers’ row. They have games versus Northwestern (96), at Nebraska (145), at Penn State (40), and versus Rutgers (31). They project to only be favored in the first two games and the odds agree that a 2-2 record is most likely. A win at Penn State would be a quad one win and a win over Rutgers might be in that category be the end of the season well.

If Minnesota finishes at 8-10 and tied with MSU, this is a tough call. The Gophers have a lot of quality wins and the head-to-head win over MSU. But, if the Spartans can get to 9-11, I think that MSU would pass the Gopher in the eyes of the committee, pending the results of the Big Ten Tournament.

Penn State (5-11), NET Ranking: 40, Q1 wins: 3, Non-Q1 losses: 3

Of the five teams that MSU is currently jockeying with for position, Penn State is the only team where MSU currently has a likely edge. Penn State’s best wins came at Virginia Tech (36), versus Wisconsin (20), and versus Maryland (30).

Penn State’s bad losses came at Michigan State (75), and versus Seton Hall (51), and Nebraska (145). The Nittany Lions also lost their only game on the schedule against the Spartans.

Penn State closes the season versus Purdue (26), Minnesota (61), and at Maryland (30), and they only project as a favorite against the Gophers. The Purdue and Maryland games are both in quad one at this time. The odds suggest that two wins might be more likely than not, but even so, a record of 7-12 is unlikely to earn an NCAA Tournament bid. That said, Penn State taking out Maryland and especially Minnesota could really help MSU in the standings. Go Lions?

Finally, let’s review MSU’s resume using the same metrics:

Michigan State (6-9), NET Ranking: 75, Q1 wins: 3, Non-Q1 losses: 1.

MSU’s best wins are over Illinois (4), at Duke (48), and at Indiana (54). The Spartans are also 3-2 combined against the teams listed above with a shot to get to 5-2 before the end of the season. To my knowledge, the Spartans do not currently appear in any bracket projection.

Of course, MSU closes the season against Ohio State (7), at Maryland (30), versus Indiana (54), at Michigan (3) and versus Michigan (3). Beating Indiana again would be a “quad two” win while any other win would be “quad one.”

If MSU’s final Big Ten record is 8-12, the Spartans would likely have one additional quad one win, with the chance to pick up one or two more in the Big Ten Tournament. That said, it would be better if that additional quad one with came against Ohio State or Michigan as opposed to Maryland.

If the Spartans’ final Big Ten record is 9-11, the Spartan would likely have two additional quad one wins, with a chance to add more in Indianapolis. The home win over Rutgers also might wind in in quad one, so the Spartans will likely have between four and seven quad one wins on Selection Sunday. That said, Indiana might fall far enough that the win in Bloomington might not be a quad one win in a few weeks.

The Bottom Line

If Michigan State cannot build on its current momentum and finish with only six or seven regular season Big Ten wins, then the season will almost certainly be over when MSU loses in the Big Ten Tournament (or the NIT, if that happens this year).

If MSU finishes at 8-12 in regular season conference play, the Spartans would be clearly behind Maryland and Rutgers, even (or slightly behind) Minnesota, but likely still ahead of Indiana and Penn State. In this scenario, my simulation suggests that MSU would have about a 70 percent chance to move up to the No. 10 seed in the Big Ten Tournament and would thus not have to play on Wednesday.

As the No. 10 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, the Spartans would most likely draw either Rutgers or Maryland as the No. 7 seed. If MSU were to win that game against a NCAA Tournament team, then the Spartans might have a shot to sneak into the Tournament, and maybe even a good one.

The next opponent would then be most likely the No. 2 seed, which projects to be either Illinois or Ohio State. Any win after that would be gravy. That might be enough, or it might not be enough to make the Big Dance. MSU’s fate would depend on the landscape in the rest of the country, which I will examine in detail a little later in the week.

If MSU can find a way to win three more games and finish at 9-11 in Big Ten play, I think that the committee would see the Spartans as comparable to Maryland and Rutgers and ahead of the rest of the pack. Considering those two teams are currently projected to be anywhere from a No. 8 to a No. 10 seed, I would feel comfortable that MSU would make the NCAA Tournament, especially with a fair performance in the Big Ten Tournament.

In addition, at 9-11 the Spartans would have a great shot to move up to the No. 8 or No. 9 seed or better Big Ten Tournament, and would then most likely face Maryland on Thursday. A win would very likely place MSU squarely in the Tournament, and would also earn them yet another date with the Wolverines on Friday.

So, while nothing is certain, I think that it is clear that MSU needs to get to at least eight conference wins to get into the conversation and nine wins to start to feel maybe confident to extend Tom Izzo’s NCAA Tournament streak. Either way, MSU needs to still be playing in the Big Ten Tournament on Friday.

As for the competition, I think that it makes sense to root for Rutgers and Penn State and against Indiana, Minnesota, and Maryland for the rest of the Big Ten season. While the climb into the Tournament is still steep, it is looking more plausible by the day.

That is all for today. As always, enjoy, and Go State, beat the Buckeyes!

As I look at the calendar, we are now in late February. Usually by this time of year in Michigan, we are watching the snow slowly recede during our daily commutes to work and watching Tom Izzo’s ball club closely to see whether the Michigan State Spartans can snag yet another Big Ten title and/or make another long run in March.

But, this year is not like normal years.

A week ago, the Spartans were essentially left for dead. After MSU faded late in West Lafayette to sink to 4-9, most pundits declared that Michigan State’s NCAA Tournament streak was officially over. But MSU went into Bloomington on Saturday and got the win that it desperately needed over the Indiana Hoosiers. While the record is just 5-9, the Spartans are not dead yet.

Sure, the road ahead is difficult. Based on the newly revised schedule, MSU will end the regular season by playing seven games in 16 days, four of which will be against teams ranked in the top-five nationally. But, if there is one thing that college basketball fans should have learned a long time ago it is this: never count Coach Tom Izzo out, no matter how bad of a hand he seems to hold.

MSU’s win over Indiana was big. At this point, any win is big, but it was the first time since pounding Rutgers in early January that Michigan State beat a team that will likely be playing in mid-March. Furthermore, fans or no fans, a win on the road in a building that has been a house of horrors for a lot better MSU teams is a big accomplishment.

But more than anything, we saw signs that several of Michigan State’s players are rounding into form. Aaron Henry, Josh Langford, and Gabe Brown all had solid games. Additionally, Rocket Watts appears to be on his way back up, and the four-headed monster at center was at least serviceable. While MSU’s two primary option at the power forward position (Joey Hauser and Malik Hall) had a tough day, we have seen these players shine before. They have it in them to both be plus players.

When MSU has struggled this year, it has been because only one or maybe two guys show up and the rest of the team seems to be still on the bus mentally. The problem for Izzo is that it seems to be a constant rotation of who is locked in and who is fogged out. It is a frustrating game of whack-a-mole that even one of the best coaches of all time is having trouble solving.

But, with the COVID pause now in the rear view mirror and with the end of the season approaching, it is possible that we might see a game or two yet when all of the moles are back in their holes and MSU actually gets four or five guys to play well at the same time.

If and when that happens, then all of a sudden MSU is the potential Big Ten contender caliber team that we thought we had back in December. That version of MSU absolutely can compete with any of the teams left on the schedule. I am sure of that.

That doesn’t mean that it will happen, but it simply means that it could happen. Once again, MSU is still alive and showing signs that it can get off of the mat. So with this in mind, let’s once again dive into the cold, emotionless numbers to see where MSU and the overall Big Ten race stands today.

Current Standings and Odds Update

As usual, here are the updated enhanced Big Ten standings as Feb 22, 2021.

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Feb. 22, 2021


The updated Big Ten win matrix and regular season championship matrix are both shown below in Tables 2 and 3.

Table 2: Updated Big Ten win distribution matrix as of Feb 22, 2021


Table 3: Updated Big Ten regular season title odds, considered only rescheduled games, as of Feb 22, 2021


In addition, my calculated luck metric (actual wins minus expected wins) is summarized below in Figure 1.


Figure 1: Updated luck Big Ten luck metric (actual wins minus expected wins) as of Feb 22, 2021

This week, I made a few significant changes to the way I analyze this data. On Friday, it was announced that MSU’s two remaining postponed games (versus Indiana and at Michigan) would be made up during the first week of March. As a result, unless something changes, MSU will complete the full 20-game conference schedule.

Most other schools announced similar changes, and as of now, all but four of the originally scheduled 140 Big Ten games look likely to be played. Of those four, three involve the University of Michigan (the games versus Indiana, at Penn State, and at Northwestern) while the remaining game is Nebraska at Purdue. As of now, nine Big Ten teams will play all 20 games, four teams will play 19, and Michigan will play only 17.

As a result of this unbalanced schedule, the expected win totals above are a bit less meaningful. Also, I am now calculating the championship odds and Big Ten Tournament seeding based on win percentages.

At 5-9, MSU currently sits in 11th place in the standings. If we look on the bright side, MSU is tied for eighth place in the loss column and four of the remaining six conference games are at home. The bad news is that remaining schedule is one of the hardest ones in the league.

As for expected wins, the Spartans’ total is back over six wins and the odds to get to 7-13 are now at over 40 percent. But, the odds to get to 8-12 (and possibly back into the NCAA tournament discussion) are only 13 percent. Figure 1 also shows that MSU is now basically even in the luck category.

With Michigan’s win over Ohio State on Sunday, the Big Ten race is practically down to just two teams: Michigan and Illinois, with Michigan now projecting to have a 90 percent chance to win the title.

The two top teams will not play the same number of games, so assuming that raw win percentages are used to determine the champion, there is essentially no way for the teams to tie. While is it very likely that Michigan will simply win the title outright, possibly by several games, there are a few more interesting scenarios.

For example, if Michigan were to lose two of its last five games (which has about a 40 percent chance of happening) and if Illinois were to run the table (which is far less likely at just seven percent), Michigan would finish at 14-3 and Illinois would be at 17-3. In this scenario, Illinois would claim the outright title, and Michigan would suddenly be wondering why they didn’t try harder to make up those three skipped games.

As for “luck,” the Wolverines continue to dominate this metric as well, and have now won almost a full two games more than than predicted based on the retroactive points spreads and victory probabilities. In contract, Iowa is almost the exact mirror image.

Once again, “luck” measures the ability of a team to win more toss-up games than they lose. This is partially luck, but also a big part grit and skill. Good teams are the ones that consistently beat the odds. That said, sometimes “luck” is just that, and eventually it does run out. March is a tough month for that to happen and some teams seem due for a regression to the mean.

Strength of Schedule Update

Figure 2 below gives the updated overall strengths of schedule for all 14 Big Ten schools, followed by the strengths of schedule considering the games played so far in Figure 3, and then the strengths of schedule for all remaining Big Ten contests in Figure 4.


Figure 2: Big Ten overall strengths of schedule


Figure 3: Big Ten strengths of schedule for all completed conference games


Figure 4: Big Ten strengths of schedule considering only remaining games

The data in Figure 2 has also now been converted to percentages due to the unbalanced schedule. Once again, these figures compare the winning percentages that an average power five team would be expected to have if that team were to play the schedule of each Big Ten team.

As has been the case for most of this season, MSU’s overall schedule and remaining schedule is quite difficult, ranking 13th out of 14 teams. Only Wisconsin’s remaining schedule, which features three road games and a visit from the Illini, projects to be harder percentage-wise.

It should be noted that the two conference leaders (Michigan and Illinois) have the two easiest schedules overall and also have played two of the easiest schedules to date. Both teams have more challenging home stretches, however, including a game against each other.

Big Ten Tournament Projection

If the season ended today, that would be weird, because only 108 total Big Ten games have been played (79 percent of the season). That said, it is possible to make projections about the Big Ten tournament based on the simulated results of the regular season. Table 4 below provides that update.

Table 4: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds, as of Feb 22, 2021


As stated above, the projections now include only the games that have been rescheduled, and I am assuming that win percentages are used to seed the teams and to break ties.

The top four seeds and getting very close to being fixed with Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State, and Iowa all with over 90 percent odds to skip the first two rounds. MSU still is projecting as the No. 12 seed who will most likely face No. 13 Northwestern on Wednesday of the Big Ten Tournament. In this scenario, MSU would face No. 5 seed Purdue on Thursday if they could beat the Wildcats in the first round.

I currently project about a seven percent chance that MSU will be able to climb out of the games on Wednesday and into at least the No. 10 seed. If this were to come to pass, the Spartans would face a team such as Rutgers or Maryland (projected No. 7 seeds) on Thursday of the Big Ten Tournament.

The results of a simulation of the Big Ten Tournament using the odds if the projected favorite wins all remaining Big Ten games is shown below in Table 5.

Table 5: Big Ten Tournament results matrix using the seeds if the projected favorite wins all remaining regular season games


MSU’s odds to somehow win five games in five days to claim the conference tournament title and automatic bid remain dreadfully low at roughly 1-in-1,500.

MSU’s Current Position and Remaining Schedule

Following MSU’s loss to Purdue and win over Indiana, I have updated the Kenpom scatter plot to show the current position of MSU relative to past MSU teams, previous champions, and the current field of national contenders.


Figure 5: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot as of Feb 22, 2021

The good news is that MSU has finally moved in a positive direction on the offensive side of the ball and have now at least rejoined a part of the graph where previous MSU teams reside. The bad news is that the 2021 MSU team now has an almost identical profile to the 1997 team that did not make the tournament.

As for the current national title contenders, Gonzaga and Baylor remain ahead of the rest of the pack, but 18 additional teams currently are in the blue “championship zone” with both offensive and defensive efficiencies in the range of the past champions. Notably both Iowa and Ohio State are currently outside of this zone, due to their defensive numbers, while Purdue is solidly in the zone.

Next up is the Michigan State NCAA Tournament dashboard. With the split in the state of Indiana last week, the numbers have improved a little, but not by much. MSU’s NCAA Tournament odds are still likely just over about 10 percent. If MSU can improve its play and steal a win or two, those odds will improve.


Figure 6: MSU's NCAA Tournament streak dashboard

Michigan State’s remaining schedule and odds are shown below in Figure 7.


Figure 7: Projected odds for MSU's remaining schedule

While MSU does not project to be favored in any of the remaining games, the odds are a bit better than they looked a week ago and the home game versus Indiana is inching closer to a toss-up. If MSU is to have any chance to sneak into the NCAA Tournament, beating the Hoosiers again and getting a win at Maryland (the Terrapins are currently on a four-game winning streak and now get a week off to prepare for MSU) both seem crucial.

Unfortunately, the current odds to win both of those games are only 12 percent, assuming MSU plays at the level consistent with their current cumulative efficiency numbers. That likely will not be good enough. The Spartans need to continue to improve. Right now.

But how much better does MSU need to play? Figure 8 below attempts to estimate this by calculating the number of expected wins MSU would have with the remaining schedule if the Spartans were to suddenly start playing like other, better Big Ten teams (based on the Kenpom efficiency margin of each Big Ten team above MSU in the standings)


Figure 8: Number of total Big Ten expected wins for MSU if the Spartans suddenly start playing better (using the Kenpom efficiency margins of other Big Ten teams)

In order for MSU’s expected win total to get over 7.5 (where a total of 8 wins is more likely than not) MSU would need to start playing at the level where Purdue and Wisconsin are right now. That might be possible, based on the play that we saw in Bloomington over the weekend, but it needs to be consistent.

In this scenario, MSU would be favored to beat both Indiana and win at Maryland, but the odds of winning both games would still be only about one-in-three. However, the odds of beating either Illinois or Ohio State (or both) this week would climb to over 65 percent. Furthermore, the odds to at least split with Michigan would climb to 50 percent. Can MSU split with Illinois and Ohio State, steal a win over Michigan, and win one or both games against Indiana and Maryland?

In this hypothetical, MSU would still need some luck, but the Spartans would finish the season at no worse than 8-12 with two late season wins over top-five opponents. If the not-quite-dead-yet Spartans are to claw their way back into the NCAA Tournament conversation, this is likely the way to do it.

Can Coach Izzo pull yet another rabbit out of the hat and get this Spartan team to finally play with a level of consistency to approach their potential? I am not counting them out yet, and they will have two chances to prove themselves yet again against high quality opponents this week.

That is all for today. As always, enjoy, and Go State, Beat the Illini!

I have not seen any discussion of this, but Hall started, played 3 minutes, and then did not play again. I did not watch the post-game press conference, but I heard that he was not mentioned. Did anyone see or here anything as to why he did not play?

Injury? Illness? Doghouse? Got lost on the way to the rest room?

This should be fun.



Both games on BTN+
Tomorrow on FSD Plus - 6 pm

Tonight it's on at 8.

I dunno, they seem fun to watch again. Just need to shoot more. Have had some decent puck possession at times.

Might need to block a few more shots though, and we look extremely small.

Still not expecting much.

So I saw this article just this morning (came out last week):

.

This is literally the only place I've seen it. I didn't even see it on USCHO

I would think this would be getting more pub:

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For those of you that don't know, Lindenwood is in St. Charles, MO - outside of St. Louis. It is a D2 school.

Lindenwood is an interesting school, because they support their non-varsity (club) sports as well financially (just no athletic scholarships), so they assist with travel, facilities, etc.... They actually (last fall) cut a bunch of those sports due to COVID. Seems odd they would bring this up to a varsity level.

MSU leads 1-0 in the 2nd period. Joshua has the goal.

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Is in the portal as you probably know and he has interest in Michigan State because of previous relationships. He also likes West Virginia, Indiana and Arizona but keep an eye on this one.

1-1 after 2. Listening to radio broadcast

I do not think that it is a stretch to say that the 2020-21 Michigan State basketball team is the most frustrating Tom Izzo team of all time. There have been times this year when the individuals that make up this team have played really well. There are times when they have avoided fouls and turnovers. There are times when they shot the ball well and made good decisions. There have been times when they have rebounded and played great defense.

Over the past week, there were additional signs that maybe the team was gaining some level of consistency. Josh Langford and Aaron Henry were starting to put together consecutive good games. Against Penn State, the big men had a good outing for the first time in a while. MSU had won two games in a row and had played well enough to almost steal a win at Iowa.

The Spartans even showed enough grit to win a close game against the Penn State Nittany Lions. There were signs that maybe, just maybe Coach Izzo might be able to coax yet another mid-February run out of these Spartans. Step by step, things seemed to be getting better, and MSU had a golden opportunity on Saturday to prove to the world that they were still a force to be reckoned with in Big Ten country.

Instead, MSU was lethargic and allowed the Hawkeye of Iowa to punk them by 30 points in their own gym. The Spartans took two steps forward, and then one giant step back.

When it comes to Michigan State sports, I am the eternal optimist, but even I am losing faith in this team. While I do believe that there is a potentially good team in that locker room somewhere, the student-athletes seem completely lost right now and they are running out of time to find themselves. I firmly believe that this team can play well enough to be a NCAA Tournament team, but it is harder and harder to believe that it will actually happen.

In times like these, it is easy to let our emotions get in the way of facts. For me, I believe that the cold hard numbers will give me a straight answer. I still may not like the answer that those numbers give me, but at least I can take comfort in the fact that I know where the numbers come from and that it is telling me a consistent and unbiased story. So, let’s take yet another stroll through the Big Ten odds and see if thing are really as bad as they feel.

Current Standings and Odds Update

As usual, here are the updated enhanced Big Ten standings as Feb. 14, 2021. Note that this entire analysis was completed prior to the slate of Big Ten games on Sunday afternoon.

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of February 14th, 2021


The updated Big Ten win matrix and regular season championship matrix are both shown below in Tables 2 and 3.

Table 2: Big Ten expected win matrix, as of February 14th, 2021


Table 3: Odds for each team to win the Big Ten regular season title, as of February 14th, 2021


In addition, my calculated luck metric (actual wins minus expected wins) is summarized below in Figure 1.


Figure 1: Big Ten luck metric as of February 14th, 2021

With the loss to Iowa, MSU now sits in a tie for 10th place in the conference with Penn State, who at least MSU now owns a tie-breaker against. Unfortunately, however, MSU’s expected win total is now right around six, while teams with Maryland and Penn State are expected to finish with closer to eight wins, assuming the all games are made up.

From the standpoint of both expected wins and Kenpom efficiencies, MSU is only clearly ahead of Northwestern and Nebraska. I estimate MSU’s odds to win at least eight conference games to now be at only 11 percent, while the odds to get back to .500 are less than one percent.

From Figure 1, we can see that MSU’s luck metric is actually starting to even out a bit. The reason for this is two-fold. First, the Spartans actually won a near toss-up game against Penn State for the first time in a while. Second, MSU’s Kenpom efficiency continues to drop, which impacts the retroactive expected win calculation. In other words, it now appears that the reason MSU lost some of the previous games was due more to the fact that MSU is just not very good as opposed to not very lucky.

As for the overall Big Ten race, coming into Sunday, Michigan remains in the driver’s seat with over a 70 percent chance to at least tie for the title with Illinois (33 percent) and Ohio State (20 percent) as the most viable other contenders. The most likely record of the eventual first place team(s) is 16-4, but this assumes Michigan will actually make up all of its postponed games, which the Wolverines clearly have no interest in doing.

Strength of Schedule Update

Figure 2 below gives the updated overall strengths of schedule for all 14 Big Ten schools, followed by the strengths of schedule considering the games played as of the morning of Feb. 14 in Figure 3, and then the strengths of schedule for all remaining Big Ten contests in Figure 4.


Figure 2: Big Ten overall strengths of schedule, as of February 14th, 2021


Figure 3: Big Ten strengths of schedule considering only completed games, as of February 14th, 2021


Figure 4: Big Ten strengths of schedule considering only remaining contents, as of February 14th, 2021

MSU still has one of the most difficult overall schedules in the conference and one of the most difficult remaining schedules. An average power five team would be expected to win less than 40 percent of MSU’s remaining scheduled games. In contrast, an average power five conference playing Maryland’s remaining schedule (a team that MSU is competing with for Big Ten Tournament seeding purposes) would be expected to win over 65 percent of their remaining games. Not great.

The only other notable change is that the strength of MSU’s completed schedule is now more in the middle of the pack, as opposed to among the easiest.

Big Ten Tournament Projection

If the season ended today, that would be weird, because only 89 total Big Ten games have been played (63 percent of the season) and the teams have not played the same number of games. That said, it is possible to make projections about the Big Ten tournament based on the simulated results. Table 4 below provides that update.

Table 4: Big Ten seeds scenario matrix, as of February 14th, 2021


MSU continues to be stuck in the bottom four of the conference with only a 10 percent change of avoiding the opening round game in Indianapolis. Right now, just staying ahead of Northwestern for the No. 12 seed seems to be the biggest challenge.

As for the results of the Big Ten Tournament itself, Table 5 below gives the results of the latest simulation, using the probability-based projected seeds (from the “best odds” column in Table 4) as opposed to the seeds in the scenario where all of the favorite teams win.

Table 5: Big Ten Tournament odds based on the projected seeds as of February 14th, 2021


As we can see, if the situation in East Lansing does not improve significantly, the odds that MSU will rise up and win the Big Ten Tournament is vanishingly small at roughly 1-in-1,250.

MSU’s Current Position and Remaining Schedule

Following MSU’s win over Penn State and loss to Iowa, I have updated the Kenpom scatter plot to show the current position of Michigan State relative to past MSU teams, previous champions, and the current field of national contenders.


Figure 5: Updated Kenpom Efficiency scatter plot as of the morning of February 14th, 2021

In my professional scientific opinion, based on the data shown in Figure 5, I can only describe Michigan State’s current position as “dire.” The Spartan’s offensive efficiency continues to be in free fall, and the overall position is so far from a range of competitiveness that it is hard to imagine this team improving enough to enjoy any sort of postseason. After the blowout loss to Iowa, this officially looks like the worst Tom Izzo team on record.

As for the field of possible National Title contenders, a total of 23 teams now appear in the blue “championship zone,” including five Big Ten teams, none of which are named Iowa. Note that Baylor and Gonzaga (whose metric are actually off scale) still are big favorites to cut down the nets in early April.

It should come as no surprise that MSU’s odds to earn an at large bid continue to slip. Figure 6 below shows the updated bubble dashboard, based on the four metrics that I am tracking: Kenpom efficiency margin and rank, the odds to finish at 8-12 or better, and the odds to win the Big Ten Tournament.


Figure 6: Michigan State Tournament streak dashboard

Based on the raw Kenpom efficiency margin, Michigan State may have as good as a roughly 30 percent chance to extend the streak. The other metrics are not quite as optimistic, and they are more likely correct. At this point, unless MSU can improve significantly, I think that there is only a 10 percent chance to make the NCAA Tournament.

This then brings us to the odds for MSU to win the remaining games on the schedule, which are shown below in Figure 7.


Figure 7: Odds for MSU to win the remaining Big Ten games, based on Kenpom efficiency margins.

As expected, Michigan State is not projected to be favored in any of the remaining games. Furthermore, the odds to win each of those games continues to drop. The only games where MSU is projected to have over a 30 percent chance to win are the road game at Maryland and the home game versus Indiana, which has not even been officially rescheduled.

So, after all of that, here is where I see things. If Michigan State is going to find a way to get back into the NCAA Tournament, the Spartans are going to need to find a way to win at least half of their remaining games. The only way for MSU to do this is for the Spartans to somehow start playing A LOT better, or for MSU is simply get really lucky.

All of the math above takes both factors into account, but the odds for MSU to improve are offset by odds that things will actually get worse. So, in general, the roughly 10 percent NCAA Tournament odds are essentially the odds that MSU is lucky. If you believe that this team will get better, somehow, then the odds are better than that.

Either way, MSU almost certainly needs four more wins just to get into the conversation. The four most likely wins left on the schedule are the two games mentioned above and the next two games: road contests at Purdue and at Indiana. I hesitate to call any game a true “must-win,” but the next two games are perhaps as close to that as any time in the past 25 years of Spartan basketball. No pressure.

Once again, this update is a major bummer. Sorry. It is not much fun being an MSU basketball fan right now. But, as the self-appointed chief optimism officer of this fine website, I will offer one more piece of data for those of us who choose to continue to think positively.

Relying on Michigan State to simply luck into a tournament bid is not very satisfying or likely. So, let’s assume that MSU does start to play better, starting on Tuesday. The question then becomes how much better does MSU need to play in order to make an NCAA Tournament case? Figure 8 below may provide that answer.


Figure 8: Expected number of final Big Ten wins, IF MSU were to start playing like one of the other Big Ten teams

In this case, I manually changed Michigan State’s efficiency margin to match that of another Big Ten team and then recalculated the total number of expected Big Ten wins that MSU would end up with. As shown above, if MSU continues to play at the level that it is currently playing, MSU’s expected win total is right at six, meaning that there is roughly a 50-50 chance to end up 6-14.

If MSU were only to elevate its play to the level where Maryland, Minnesota, Penn State or Indiana are currently, this would really only bump the expected win total up to around seven games, which is not good enough. If MSU can start playing like Purdue or Rutgers, the expected win total approaches 7.5, which is borderline.

In order to get the expected win total to be solidly at eight wins, Michigan State needs to start playing like Wisconsin (currently ranked No. 12 in Kenpom) right now. That is certainly a tall task, but that is where we are right now. The sad thing is that even if MSU were to start playing at the level of the top teams in the conference, getting to 10 wins (.500) would require a little bit of luck.

That said, of the three teams that MSU needs to most emulate right now (Purdue, Rutgers, and Wisconsin) the Spartan did beat one of those teams by 30 points, and led the other two by over nine points in the second half. I do believe that MSU is capable of playing that well. They just need to find a way to do it on a consistent basis.

Will that happen? It is honestly not likely. Is it possible? With Tom Izzo on the bench? You betcha.

That is all for today. Until next time, enjoy, and Go State, beat the Boilers!

Hadn't seen this posted yet. On paper this is a good looking class.
https://msuspartans.com/news/2021/2/9/mens-ice-hockey-spartan-hockey-signs-five-for-2021-22.aspx

I just have a few random thoughts about this year's team and where they are:

1) What would have happened if MSU were to have played Virginia?

MSU was rolling and UVA was struggling. If MSU were to have played and won, that would sure have been a VERY nice win on the resume. Or, would MSU just have been exposed earlier?

2) How would we view this team in MSU would have not choked in the last 30 sec against Purdue?

If MSU wins that game, we are 5-6 in Big Ten play in the middle of the pack. I think most brackets would still have MSU "in" and the narrative would be that MSU just got rolling after a tough stretch in December, but COVID messed them up for a few games and now they are figuring things out again. All that due to 30 bad seconds

3) If things are going to get fixed, it almost had to happen this week.

MSU has been in East Lansing for over a week. The "late January / early February Bermuda triangle" is now past. COVID or no-COVID, this is Tom Izzo time. He doesn't have the usual full playbook, but it's time to tighten down all the screws that can be tightened. MSU hits the road again next week, but then only leaves the state once more (at Maryland) prior to the BTT. That is enough time (I think) to squeeze some more out of these guys.

4) Will the rotation finally get tightened?

I was looking at some of the box scores over the past few years and it is crazy to compare minutes to this year's team. X and Cash were playing almost the entire game and this year it is like everybody is played 25 minutes. It seems like it is time to pick your top 9 guys and go with it, ride or die.

5) I still believe that we will see some good, if not great moments from this team.

The progress that the bigs showed against Penn State was important. Now, it is time for guys like Rocket and Gabe to get back to a level of consistency. Shooting has been a train-wreck, but all of these guys have proven that they can shoot. The defense has been great at times, the turnover issue has been solved... at times. This team just needs to get it all together at the same time. I think that it can happen. I think that it will happen at some point. I know the schedule is tough, but I see no reason why this team can't get hot and beat 2-3 ranked teams in a row. That still might only be good enough to get to 8-12 or 9-11, but that gets MSU back into the conversation.

I won't be shocked if some day soon this team just has a flat out great night and beats a team like Iowa, Ohio State, Illinois, or Michigan... by a lot. On the other hand, I won't be shocked if they lose all of the rest of their games. But, I think that it is more likely than not that this team flashes, more than once, before the end of the season. The question is, will it be enough to keep the streak alive?

And... if it is and if MSU can beat a few ranked Big Ten teams... why can't they win a few games in March? The season is far from over. I still believe in magic.