This weekend marks the end of the 2023 men's college basketball season with the annual Final Four. Just like the fans, the Michigan State Spartans will be watching the game at home. But just a week or so ago, some Michigan State fans were dreaming big.
Michigan State played very well during the first weekend in wins over No. 10 Southern California and No. 2 Marquette to advance to the Spartans' first Sweet 16 since 2019. That alone is a great accomplishment for a team with limited preseason expectations, injuries, and a team that flirted with a .500 Big Ten record for most of the regular season.
But the Spartans' Tournament run came to an end with an overtime loss to Kansas State in the Sweet 16. While the vast majority of Spartans fans were happy with the season overall, a subset of Michigan State fans were left wanting more. The path to a potential National Championship Game appearance opened wider as the weekend progressed.
In times like this, I often fall back on the cold, emotion-free numbers to help me understand the reality of the situation. Here is a sampling of what those numbers told me:
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At the end of the day, did Michigan State simply hit a ceiling or was there a missed opportunity? Even with the data shown above, a logic case for both positions can be made. Let's explore both.
Michigan State fans should be happy with the Sweet 16
The Spartans entered the Tournament with a well-deserved No. 7 seed and the expectation to only win a single game, at most. The seed was the result of an up-and-down, inconsistant season. At times, the Spartans were very good on defense. At times, the Spartans were very good on offense. They were rarely very good at both in the same game.
Michigan State managed to play two very good games in a row against USC and Marquette and as a result, the Spartans overachieved by making it to the second weekend. It is unreasonable to have expected this team to have advanced any further.
A quick look at the Spartans schedule shows that they only won more than two games in a row once during the entire season. That was only due to a stretch of games in December and early January where Michigan State beat Brown, Oakland, Buffalo, and Nebraska all at home. The challenge of beating four, five, or six NCAA-quality teams in a row is much harder and it is something that the 2023 team never showed that they could do.
The efficiency profile of the 2023 Spartans (as shown below in Figure 1) further suggests that the Sweet 16 was likely the ceiling for this team.
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| Figure 1: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot for the 2023 Michigan State season with comparisons to past MSU teams, past NCAA champion, and notable 2023 championship contenders. |
The fact is that no other Tom Izzo-coached team that entered the NCAA Tournament with an efficiency margin lower than 20.0 made it to the Sweet 16. Michigan State's 2023 pre-tournament efficiency margin was just 16.7.
While the path ahead of Michigan State in 2023 was easier than in most years, the odds shown above confirm that Spartans were not likely to advance much farther even if they would have eked out a win against Kansas State. Just beating Florida Atlantic would have been difficult, and the odds of advancing farther than that would have been below 20%. Michigan State would have been, at best, the seventh best team in the Elite Eight.
At the end of the day, the Spartans were exactly who the stats say that they were. They hit their ceiling, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The idea that this roster should have advanced to the Final Four (or even beyond) is simply wishful thinking. Spartan fans should not lose any sleep over the loss to Kansas State.
Michigan State blew a major opportunity and the fans have every right to be salty.
The odds listed above are accurate and would have almost certainly tracked with the actual point spreads had the Spartans continued to advance. However, those odds are based entirely on the assumption that Michigan State is the perfect average of the team that they have been all season.
But there are several reasons to believe that the 2023 team was cycling up and ready to play at a level above what the metrics say.
Ever since the loss to Rutgers in Madison Square Garden on Feb. 4, the Spartans were trending up. That upward trajectory was disrupted by a couple of external events, including the tragic events on campus on the night of Feb. 13 and an extremely unlikely collapse in Iowa City. But the progress was clear.
The Spartans also managed to lay an egg against Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament, but that was an attempt to beat a team for the third time in less than a month. The Buckeyes were starting to play a lot better than their record indicated.
As March approached, the Spartans were finally healthy and Coach Tom Izzo was tightening the final screws. This team had all of the elements needed for a long tournament run: excellent guard play, good shooting, lock-down defense, and a Hall-of-Fame coach.
In the first two games of the Tournament, the Spartans didn't even shoot the ball well and they still won both games going away, including a win over Big East champions Marquette.
Even in the loss to Kansas State, the Wildcats needed more than one of their player to hit multiple miracle-level shots just to get to overtime with the Spartans. Make no mistake, Michigan State would have won a seven-game series with Kansas State, possibly in as few of five games.
Despite the fact that there was a No. 7 next to Michigan State and 13 losses on the Spartans' resume, they were playing more like a No. 2 or a No. 1 seed in Tournament play. The performance against Marquette proved that, and Izzo-coached teams have a proven track record of rising to the occasion in March.
In a normal year, even playing at that level is not sufficient to guarantee to trip to the Final Four and beyond. But 2023 is not a normal year.
Had Michigan State beaten Kansas State, the Spartans would have likely been a narrow favorite over No. 9 Florida Atlantic in the Regional Final. On paper, that game would have been a toss-up. But with Tom Izzo at the helm of a one-day tournament prep against a coach with zero career NCAA Tournament wins prior to this year, I will go with Coach Izzo.
If the Spartans would have advanced to the Final Four to face No. 5 San Diego State, Michigan State would likely been a slight underdog. However, Coach Izzo's past Final Four failures have usually come against coaches such as Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Lute Olson, Brad Stevens, and Chris Beard with the Spartans sometimes struggling with injuries.
In the 2023 Final Four, Coach Izzo would have squared off against a coach in Brian Dutcher whose most notable coaching accomplishment up until this year was securing the bag for the Fab Five while working as an assistant coach at Michigan under Steve Fisher. Once again, I will go with Coach Izzo.
If the Spartans were to have made it all the way to the National Championship game against (most likely) UConn, Michigan State would have been a clear underdog. But the Spartans had already beaten the Big East champions, and the Huskies would be entering the game with a head coach (Dan Hurley) in his first Final Four on a one-day prep.
UConn has played extremely well in the Tournament so far, but they are a No. 4 seed for a reason. Furthermore, the highest seed the Huskies will have faced in the entire Tournament so far are the defensively-challenge No. 3 Gonzaga Bulldogs. The potential match-up with Michigan State also feels like a potential coin-flip, IF the Spartans were to have brought their "A-game."
Based on the unique circumstances of the 2023 tournament, Michigan State had the opportunity to go all the way. Any Michigan State fan who says otherwise is down-playing the Spartans' chances as a coping mechanism.
Ultimately, the thing that makes the Sweet 16 exit the hardest to accept is the fact that, like it or not, the Tom Izzo era in East Lansing is in approaching the final stages. Fans do not know how many more NCAA Tournaments Coach Izzo has left. Every remaining opportunity is precious.
One more Final Four will give Tom Izzo a total of nine. That would place him in a tie for fourth place all time with Roy Williams. The only men ahead of him would be Mike Krzyzewski, John Wooden, and Dean Smith. Furthermore, a lot of coaches can claim one National Title. In the men's game, only 16 coaches have done it more than once. Coach Izzo could have added his name to that very short list.
The Michigan State basketball program is strong, but there is only one Tom Izzo. Once his time on the sidelines is at an end, things will be different. While it is reasonable to expect that the program will continue to be very competitive, the arrow of progress almost certainly only points in one direction: down.
In the time that we have left, every tournament run counts.
Add it Up
Which side of this argument is correct? I believe that there is truth in both. Ultimately, the Spartans' run did end at the Sweet 16. But did the run end due to the Spartans' regressing the their mean or because they ran into a hot team that played out of their minds? That is hard to say. Likely both statements are at least partially true.
For those fans that do feel a sense of loss over a perceived missed opportunity, I believe that there is some truth to that as well. That said, that version of reality hinges on the idea that Tom Izzo could work some of his March magic and get his team to play like the best possible version of themselves for three straight weeks.
Maybe that is an unreasonable expectation. Or, maybe it isn't. But it would have been fun to find out.
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