MSU Hoops Update: Big Ten Tournament Scenarios

In less than 48 hours, the 2023-24 Big Ten regular season will come to a close. In the mean time, there are still seven games left to play, which corresponds to 128 possible endings and 94 unique Big Ten Tournament brackets.

For the Michigan State Spartans, the seeding scenarios are very straight forward. If the Spartans can win on the road against the Indiana Hoosiers on Sunday afternoon, Michigan State will earn the No. 6 or No. 7 seed depending on the result of the Iowa/Illinois game that will be played later on Sunday evening. An Illinois victory would result in the No. 6 seed for the Spartans, while an Iowa victory would give the Green and White the No. 7 seed.

If the Spartans cannot get the win in Bloomington, Michigan State drops to the No. 8 seed in the Big Ten Tournament.

In general, the better the seed, the better the chances that the Spartans will have to win more games in the tournament and thus improve their seed in the NCAA Tournament. Based on the range of Michigan State's projected seeds, the potential first two opponents on Thursday and Friday have the largest impact on the relative difficulty of the Spartans' Big Ten Tournament path.

Despite the 128 possible outcomes, there are currently just 17 total combinations of second round and quarterfinals opponents that Michigan State can face. That number drops to 11 if we assume the No. 14 Michigan Wolverines are unlikely to win the first round game on Wednesday. Let's take a closer look at each of those 11 scenarios and how the Spartans can get there.

No. 6 Seed Scenarios

As mentioned above, Michigan State will earn the Big Ten Tournament No. 6 seed if both Michigan State and Illinois win on Sunday. Table 1 below summarizes in the full tournament bracket in these 32 scenarios.

Table 1: Big Ten Tournament Scenarios where Michigan State earns a No. 6 seed.

The table shows the winner of each of the remaining seven Big Ten regular season games on the left and the corresponding Big Ten Tournament seed on the right. On each row, Michigan State's most likely Thursday (second round) opponent is highlighted in yellow and the quarterfinals opponent is highlighted in orange.

If Michigan State earns the No. 6 seed, there are only two possible No. 11 seeds (Ohio State and Maryland) and three possible No. 3 seed quarterfinals opponents (Nebraska, Northwestern, and Wisconsin). Thus, there are six different paths that the Spartans could have to reach the Big Ten Tournament semifinals

No. 14 seed Michigan is also a possible second round opponent, but the Wolverines will be a significant underdog (at least six points) in first round action on Wednesday against either Ohio State or Maryland. Those scenarios have been removed for simplicity.

The two columns in the center of Table 1 give the odds for each of the six clusters of scenarios as well as the average odds for Michigan State to win the Big Ten Tournament in each scenario cluster. In general, the scenarios are listed from the easiest possible path to the most difficult. The No. 6 seed overall give the Spartans the best chance to win the Big Ten Tournament at 6.7%.

Regarding the potential No. 11 seed opponent, the analysis is simple. In this subset of scenarios, if Maryland beats Penn State in the final regular season Big Ten game of the year on Sunday evening, the Terrapins will secure the No. 11 seed. 

Based current Kenpom rankings, Michigan State is likely to be favored by around four points over either the Buckeyes or the Terrapins. So, there is no clear advantage for the Spartans in either scenario. The old adage that it is difficult to beat the same team three times suggest to me that Ohio State would be the better opponent on Thursday.

The relative difficulty of Michigan State's Big Ten Tournament path is more dependent on the potential quarterfinals opponent. Current Kenpom data suggests that the Spartans would be favored over any of three potential opponents on a neutral court. Michigan State projects to be a three-point favorite over Northwestern, a two-point favorite over Nebraska, and a one-point favorite over Wisconsin. 

The analysis suggests that the best scenario for Michigan State is for Northwestern to earn the No. 3 seed. The Spartans odds to win the Big Ten Tournament max out at 7.3% in this scenario. As Table 1 shows, this scenario requires Purdue to beat Wisconsin, Michigan to upset Nebraska, and Northwestern to beat Minnesota on Saturday night.

The most likely scenario (and second-most beneficial at 6.7%) is for the Spartans to line up against No. 3 Nebraska. For this scenario to occur, Nebraska need to beat Michigan and Purdue needs to beat Wisconsin (which are both likely). Nebraska can also earn the No. 3 seed if Wisconsin upsets Purdue and Minnesota upsets Northwestern.

The worst scenarios (tournament odds drop to 6.2%) for Michigan State as the No. 6 seed are the ones where Wisconsin rises up to claim the No. 3 seed. The scenario comes to pass is Wisconsin upsets Purdue and Northwestern beats Minnesota. This scenario also occurs if Minnesota upsets Northwestern and Michigan upsets Nebraska.

No. 7 Seed Scenarios

Table 1 below summarizes in the full tournament bracket in 32 scenarios where Michigan State beats Indiana and Iowa upsets Illinois on Sunday evening. Overall, the Spartans' odds to win the Big Ten Tournament edge down to an average of 6.2% in these scenarios.

Table 2: Big Ten Tournament Scenarios where Michigan State earns a No. 7 seed.

If the Spartans end up as the No. 7 seed, there are only three unique potential paths to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals. All paths for the No. 7 seed will go through No. 2 Illinois in the quarterfinals where Michigan State projects to be between a 2.0- or 2.5-point underdog.

As the No. 7 seed, there are three possible No. 10 seed opponents in second round action on Thursday: Indiana (projected to be +7.5 against Michigan State), Minnesota (+6), and Ohio State (+4).

In order for Michigan State to get most beneficial draw (No. 10 Indiana which corresponds to 6.6% tournament odds), first Penn State needs to beat Maryland. In addition, either Minnesota needs to upset Northwestern or Rutgers need to upset Ohio State.

In the second most beneficial scenario (No. 10 Minnesota, 6.1% odds), Northwestern and Ohio State both need to win over the weekend. The least beneficial scenario (No. 10 Ohio State, 5.7% odds) occurs if Maryland beats Penn State and as long as either Ohio State or Northwestern also lose.

No. 8 Seed Scenarios

Table 3 below summarizes in the full tournament bracket in 64 scenarios where Michigan State loses at Indiana on Sunday afternoon. The Spartans' odds to win the Big Ten Tournament drop to 5.5% in these scenarios.

Table 2: Big Ten Tournament Scenarios where Michigan State earns a No. 8 seed.

Despite the fact that Table 3 is the largest and contains the most scenarios, the analysis is simple. If Michigan State loses to Indiana on Sunday and falls to the No. 8 seed, there is an 85% chance that the Spartans face No. 9 Minnesota on Thursday.

The only other options would be for Ohio State to grab the No. 9 seed, but this only happens if Northwestern, Ohio State, and Maryland all win over the weekend. In all cases, No. 8 Michigan State would face No. 1 Purdue on Friday is they were to advance. The potential Ohio State/Purdue path to open the Big Ten Tournament gives the Spartans the worst overall odds to win the Big Ten Tournament at 5.2%.