{"id":15564,"date":"2024-03-06T13:49:19","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T18:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=15564"},"modified":"2024-03-06T13:49:19","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T18:49:19","slug":"michigan-state-basketball-facing-win-and-youre-in-game-vs-northwestern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=15564","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State basketball facing \u201cwin and you\u2019re in\u201d game vs. Northwestern"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>According to an NCAA Tournament expert, Wednesday&#8217;s Northwestern vs. Michigan State basketball matchup is a &#8220;win and you&#8217;re in&#8221; game.<\/h2>\n<p>A lot is on the line in this next <a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/michigan-state-basketball-recognizing-seniors-ahead-of-senior-night\/\">Michigan State basketball<\/a> game. The Spartans play Northwestern at home on Wednesday, and a win is important for many reasons. MSU would love to end their three-game losing streak as well as get a win for their seniors on senior night. There are also a lot of Big Ten Tournament seeding implications on this game as well.<\/p>\n<p>But there is one other thing that is more important than all of those things combined: the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The Spartans are <a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/michigan-state-basketball-considered-lock-to-make-ncaa-tournament\/\">considered a \u201clock\u201d<\/a> by some to make the tournament already. Others, including myself, think there is still work to be done. Northwestern sits in a very similar spot as well. The Wildcats are in position to make the Big Dance but likely need one or two more wins to make it in. That\u2019s why one bracket expert has this game labeled as a \u201cwin and you\u2019re locked in\u201d game for both teams.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">NCAAT Bubble Games to Watch this week from Tuesday &#8211; Thursday\u2b07\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/t5Y7edpyBp\">pic.twitter.com\/t5Y7edpyBp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ryan Hammer\ud83d\udd28 (@ryanhammer09) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ryanhammer09\/status\/1765108632268456422?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Win and you\u2019re in<\/h3>\n<p>Ryan Hammer is one of the more respected NCAA Tournament experts out there. He updates his tournament field regularly, listing every team he would have in the tournament along with their seed. He also watches which games impact the tournament bubble the most, and the Spartans&#8217; game Wednesday headlines them all.<\/p>\n<p>As I mentioned before, both MSU and Northwestern are in the tournament field as it stands today. But they both also need to do a little work. Meaning that if either team loses the rest of their games they won\u2019t make the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why Michigan State\u2019s game on Wednesday is so important. If the Spartans can win, they have a great chance at extending their tournament streak regardless of what happens the rest of the season. I personally think MSU needs two more wins to feel 100 percent confident they\u2019ll make the tournament, but I do think they can get in with one win as well.<\/p>\n<p>I, however, do not want to have to sweat out Selection Sunday, or even need to do well in the Big Ten Tournament to get in. So MSU needs to finish the season strong with two wins in their final regular season games. That all begins Wednesday on senior night against Northwestern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have to win on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":15610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[190,189,504],"class_list":["post-15564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}