A little over a week ago, I was seriously considering the odds that Michigan State could still sneak into the Big Ten race and a top four seed in both the Big Ten and NCAA Tournament if a few things broke just right. The Spartans were cooking and riding a high. A typical late February and March Tom Izzo run seemed imminent.
Then, the loss to Iowa happened. That put a large dent in the confidence of Spartan fans, but I was confident that the team would bounce back with a strong effort against Ohio State. But, the exact opposite happened.
Instead of sitting alone in third place with a solid shot at a Big Ten Tournament double bye, the Spartans have dropped to sixth place and are in danger of dropping even farther. Instead of things breaking just right, they have broken extremely bad.
What went wrong and what comes next? Let's once again dig into the numbers to find out. As always, check out the Michigan State Basketball Odds and Stats Tracker the full set of data that will be discussed below.
What went wrong against Ohio State?
Figure 1 below provides a summary of the Four Factors in Michigan State's 60-57 home loss to Ohio State on Feb. 25.
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| Figure 1: Summary of the Four Factors in Michigan State's home loss to Ohio State on Feb. 25.
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The good news is that for the first time since beating Maryland on Feb. 3 and for just the second time in the last 11 games, The Spartans held an opponent to under 50% in effective field goal percentage. This was largely due to a strong first half on the defensive end.
The bad news is that Michigan State did not do anything else well, especially on offense. The Spartans did not shoot well and they lost the turnover, rebounding, and free throw battles.
Ohio State got off three more shots from the field and seven more free throws. The Spartans' modest advantage in shooting percentage could not over come the deficit in scoring attempts.
State of the Big Ten Race
Table 1 below shows the updated enhanced Big Ten standings as of Feb. 27.
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| Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Feb. 27, 2024.
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With yet another home loss, the Spartans have dropped back to zero in the plus/minus rating. Michigan State has three road wins, but these wins are offset by the three home losses. If the Spartans plan to finish above .500 in Big Ten play, they are going to need to win a game on the road (at Purdue or at Indiana) and they will need to win the sole remaining home game against Northwestern.
Michigan State has also once again dropped into last place in the Big Ten in luck at -2.02. While I believe that it is true that some of the problems with this year's team, when "bad luck" persists for this long, it suggest that a team has deeper issues.
Had the Spartans beaten both Iowa and Ohio State as expected, Michigan State would be back to neutral (zero) in the luck metric. But the two loses suggest that this team lacks what can only be called "grit."
While they have shown the ability to win on the road and close out games, the inconsistencies caused by a lack of focus, energy, and execution over the last two losses is a problem that has not gone away. The question now is when and if the Spartans will break out of this current funk.
Table 2 below shows the updated Big Ten win distribution matrix.
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| Table 2: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix as of Feb. 27, 2024 |
A more visual representation of Michigan State win probability distribution is shown below in Figure 2.
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| Figure 2: Regular season Big Ten win probability distribution for Michigan State as of Feb. 27, 2024 |
The Spartans (10.61) are in sixth place in expected wins and are more than a full game behind Nebraska (11.93), Northwestern (11.96) and Wisconsin (12.25). More concerning is that Minnesota (9.90), and Iowa (9.54) are both within range to possibly catch or pass Michigan State in the final standings.
Not good.
As Figure 2 shows, there is still greater than a 50% chance that the Spartans will finish strong in the final three games of the season. Michigan State projects to be a 10.5-point underdog at Purdue on Saturday, but the Spartans are predicted to be a 6.5-point favorite against Northwestern at home on March 6 and a 5.5-point favorite in the regular season finale on March 10.
This analysis suggests that Michigan State is still most likely going to finish with a final record of 11-9 in Big Ten play.
Table 3 below gives the updated Big Ten Tournament seeding odds.
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| Table 3: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds as of Feb. 23, 2024 |
A more detailed breakdown of the Spartans' Big Ten Tournament seed odds based on final record is shown below in Figure 3.
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| Figure 3: Breakdown of Michigan State's Big Ten Tournament seed odds based on final regular season record, |
Similar to the two sets of standings shown above, Michigan State is projected as the No. 6 seed in the Big Ten Tournament (54% odds). The odds of a double bye (top four seed) are down in 2.4% and the odds of just getting a top five seed are under 10%. The Spartans could also fall to the No. 7 seed (27%) or even the No. 8 seed or worse (9%).
There are currently a huge number of possible tiebreaker scenarios, but Michigan State is in a weak position relative to Wisconsin, Northwestern, Nebraska, and Iowa. The Spartans would win a tiebreaker right now with Minnesota, but that changes if the Gophers upset Illinois on Wednesday. Michigan State is in a favorable position if either Penn State or Maryland were to end up tied with the Spartans.
A simple rule of thumb based on Figure 3 is that the Spartans are mostly likely to earn the No. 5 seed if they win out in conference play (12-8 record). For every loss that MSU accumulates in the final three games of the regular season, the most likely seed drops by one down to the No. 8 seed if Michigan State finishes at 9-11.
NCAA Tournament Scenarios
Despite the two upset losses over the past week, Michigan State remains in solid shape for the NCAA Tournament. Figure 3 below gives the current seed distribution from the bracket matrix website.
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| Figure 3: Distribution of NCAA Tournament seeds for Michigan State as of Feb. 27 according to bracketmatrix.com |
The majority of online brackets have the Spartans as a No. 8 or No. 9 seed. My seeding algorithm has the Spartans as No. 34 on the seed list (the second best No. 9 seed).
Michigan State continues to be ranked highly in both Kenpom (No. 20) and the NET (No. 24) which are helping keep the Spartans off the NCAA Tournament bubble. However, I only have the Spartans ranked No. 51 in my strength of resume ranking.
While these number currently still look pretty rosy, they will also start to break in bad direction in the Spartans cannot improve the level of their play. All of the data above suggests that Michigan State is safely in the NCAA Tournament as long as they play like the average version of themselves for the rest of the season.
If Michigan State continues to play as poorly as they did against Iowa and Ohio State, beating Purdue is out of the question, and beating Northwestern and Indiana will be a challenge. I still believe that Michigan State needs two more wins in the regular season and Big Ten Tournament combined to feel safe on Selection Sunday.
Had Michigan State beaten either Iowa or Ohio State, I would feel a lot better about the rest of the season. But the fact that the Spartans gave such a poor effort in both games is very, very troubling. At this point, they need to prove to me that they can give a solid effort and beat a Big Ten team before I feel any level of confidence that they will finish strong.
At the end of the day, Michigan State will get what they deserve. If they can turn things around and get back to the level of play we saw in wins over Illinois, Baylor, Indiana State, and on the road against Maryland, Penn State, and Michigan, they will easily make the NCAA Tournament and once they are in, anything can happen.
If they cannot re-elevate their play, the NCAA Tournament streak is in danger of being broken. That would be very, very bad.
Michigan State was a midweek bye and has not left the state of Michigan in over two weeks. This is the time for Tom Izzo to make his final adjustments to get the most out of this team. This team has talent and potential, but the inconsistency is maddening and time is almost up. Ready or not, March is coming.
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