What a difference a few weeks can make. On Jan. 13, the Michigan State Spartans men's basketball team appeared to be dead in the water. The Spartans' has just returned home following back-to-back loses at Northwestern and at Illinois. Michigan State had a record of just 9-7 overall and 1-4 in conference play.
Certain corners of the Spartan fanbase were ready to declare there was no chance that the NCAA Tournament streak would continue. All hope, it seemed, was lost. Despite the presence of a hall-of-fame coach on the bench, an easier schedule to close the season, and a mountain of data suggesting the team was better than the record indicated, fans were starting to panic.
Fast forward to the wanning days of February, and the situation looks much different. The Spartans have won eight of the last 10 games, including three wins on the road. Michigan State has moved from the bottom of the Big Ten standings and into a tie for third place. A 26th consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance is now virtually assured.
With just three weeks remaining in the conference regular season, let's take a close look at where Michigan State stands and what comes next. As always, check out the odds and stats tracker a full run down of all the data that will be referenced below.
The State of the Big Ten Race
Table 1 below gives the updated enhanced Big Ten standings
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| Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Feb. 19, 2024 |
The most notable updates in Table 1 are that Michigan State is up to +2 in the plus/minus rating and up to -1.04 in luck. Only Purdue and Illinois have a higher plus/minus and the Spartans' luck has improved from a low of -1.80 a few weeks ago. While Michigan State's luck has improved these data suggest that the Spartans should be 10-5 instead of 9-6.
Table 2 below gives the updated Big Ten win matrix.
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| Table 2: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix as of Feb. 19, 2024. |
Figure 1 below gives a more visual representation of the Spartans' win distribution.
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| Figure 1: Regular season Big Ten win probability distribution for Michigan State as of Feb. 19, 2024. |
The Spartans (12.34) have now passed Wisconsin (11.97) for third place in expected wins. Purdue (16.03) and Illinois (14.08) still have a significant lead over Michigan State and will be difficult to catch.
However, looking down the standings, Northwestern (11.75) and Nebraska (11.10) are both within approximately one game of the Spartans. If Michigan State were to drop some of the winnable games down the stretch, there is a chance that Spartans could slip down the standings.
As for the Big Ten Tournament seedings, Table 3 below gives the current update.
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| Table 3: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds as of Feb. 19, 2024. |
All this data suggests that Purdue and Illinois are settling into the top two spots of the conference. Seeds No. 3 through No. 6 in the Big Ten tournament are still very much up for grabs.
As Figure 1 shows, Michigan State is slightly more likely to go 13-7 than 12-8 and there is a 76% chance that the Spartans land with one of those two final records. But in regards to the Big Ten Tournament, the Spartans are in a weak position from a tiebreaker point of view with a current 0-4 record against Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Northwestern.
While the Spartans have a higher expected number of wins, Wisconsin still has better odds than Michigan State to earn the No. 3 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. The Spartans are still in solid shape to earn a tournament double bye with a top four seed (58%), but Northwestern (42%), and Nebraska (28%) are still very much in play.
Let's Think B1G
The data above give a clear view of the most likely end to the Big Ten regular season. There is currently an 89% chance that the Spartans will end up with something between the No. 3 and No. 6 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. But Purdue's loss at Ohio State on Sunday begs the question: is there a chance Michigan State get back into the Big Ten race?
My most recent simulation of the remainder of the Big Ten season gives Purdue a 95% chance to at least share the regular season title. Illinois is in second place with an 18% chance. Michigan State currently has the third best odds at 0.54%.
In other words, the Spartans have a 1-in-187 chance to at least share the regular season title. That is a small number, but just a few days ago, the odds were less than 1-in-1,000. Over the weekend, Michigan State's chances have improved fivefold.
Based on the current Big Ten standings (Table 1) there is still a very narrow path for an improbable Big Ten title in East Lansing. First of all, Michigan State would need to beat Purdue in West Lafayette on March 2 and win the other four conference games to finish at 14-6. In this scenario (with estimated odds of 7%), the Spartans would claim a share of the Big Ten title if both Purdue and Illinois were to lose at least two additional games.
Illinois has a challenging set of games to close the Big Ten season. In fact, my simulation gives the Illini only a 36% chance to finish above 14-6. However, in order for Michigan State to have realistic chance, the Spartans would likely need Illinois (-0.5 projected spread) to beat Purdue in Champaign on March 5 and then lose two other games.
The best chances for Illinois to drop two other games will be the two road games at Wisconsin (-0.5) on March 2 and at Iowa (+3.5) on March 10. There is about a 19% chance Illinois loses both of those games. The road game on Wednesday at Penn State (+7.5) is also a game to keep an eye on.
As for Purdue, the assumptions above already have the Boilermakers dropping games to Michigan State (+9) and at Illinois (-0.5). Purdue would still need to lose the regular season finale with Wisconsin (+10) at home to drop to 14-6. The odds that Purdue loses to both Illinois and Wisconsin to close the regular season are 7%.
Yes, the path is narrow, but I am saying that there is a chance.
That said, Michigan State has far better odds to hang a Big Ten Tournament Championship banner. The Spartans current odds are 12%, behind only Purdue (47%), and Illinois (22%).
NCAA Tournament Projections
With the Spartans now trending to finish the regular season with a record of 21-10 or better, an NCAA Tournament bid seems very likely. The website barttorvik.com give Michigan State over a 99% chance to be in the field.
The website bracketmatrix.com tracks around 100 public brackets. As of Feb. 19, Michigan State is the consensus last No. 7 seed on the board. Figure 2 below gives the distribution of the seeds assigned to the Spartans in all 92 of the brackets polled on that day.
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| Figure 2: Distribution of NCAA Tournament seeds for Michigan State as of Feb. 19 according to bracketmatrix.com |
The plurality of brackets have Michigan State currently as a No. 8 seed (42%), but almost half (47%) have the Spartans as a No. 7 seed or better.
But there is reason to believe that the Spartans could be even higher. As of Feb. 19, Michigan State is ranked No. 15 in Kenpom, and No. 20 in the NET. The Spartans also have a top 25 strength of schedule. These factors suggest that a better seed might be in the cards for the Green and White.
Over the past few years I have been developing my own algorithm to estimate NCAA Tournament seeds. My algorithm uses a combination of Kenpom efficiency and my own strength of resume calculation.
A retrospective application of this algorithm over the past four tournament suggests that it can correctly predict a team's position on the seed list to within four spots (up to one seed) 70% of the time and within eight spots (up to two seeds) 90% of the time.
My algorithm currently ranks Michigan State as No. 18 on the seed list, which corresponds to a No. 5 seed. While this placement may seem high, I believe that it at least suggests that the Spartans are currently safely above the dreaded No.8/No. 9 seed line.
Finally, Figure 3 below shows the update Kenpom efficiency scatter plot.
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| Figure 6: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot as of Feb. 19, 2024. |
The Spartans' statistical profile continues to exist in the light blue zone just outside of the core national title contender zone. The current team has an offensive and defensive profile almost identical to Izzo's 2015 Final Four team.
Michigan State is currently one of only 13 teams with a profile in the National Championship zone. Seven of those teams reside in the light blue, borderline contender zone: Iowa State, Kansas, Marquette, North Carolina, Purdue, St Mary's College, and San Diego State all join the Spartans.
There are currently only five teams with profiles in the in core contender zone: Arizona, Auburn, UConn, Houston, and Tennessee.
Based on these data, Michigan State has a chance to do something very special this year.
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