{"id":1694,"date":"2023-03-05T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2023-03-05T13:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=1694"},"modified":"2023-03-05T01:58:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-05T06:58:44","slug":"michigan-state-basketball-double-bye-rooting-interests-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=1694","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State basketball: Double-bye rooting interests for Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>If you&#8217;re following along for Michigan State basketball to have a shot at a double-bye on Sunday, root for these teams.<\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s not over until it&#8217;s over. And for Michigan State basketball, the hopes for a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament aren&#8217;t over yet.<\/p>\n<p>With Michigan State winning on Saturday afternoon against Ohio State, it took care of the major piece of the double-bye puzzle. If Michigan State had lost to the Buckeyes on Senior Day, we wouldn&#8217;t even be having this discussion as they&#8217;d be in the bottom half of the Big Ten standings with a potential matchup with Purdue looming if the Spartans won their first tourney game.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the Spartans took care of the Buckeyes to improve to 11-8 in conference play and they&#8217;d likely be 12-8 <a href=\"http:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/michigan-state-basketball-rutgers-dealt-karma-loss-minnesota\/\">had Rutgers moved up their game<\/a> to help both teams out, but I digress.<\/p>\n<p>With one day left in the regular season, there will be a handful of Big Ten games to keep an eye on Sunday, especially if you&#8217;re curious about the potential double-bye and final seeding for the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>As it sits right now, Michigan State can finish no lower than seventh in the Big Ten, which is huge because that would remove them from &#8220;playing Purdue in the quarterfinal&#8221; territory. But sitting in a guaranteed top-seven spot does not mean the final standings are anywhere near clear.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the four games to keep an eye on and the rooting interest MSU fans need to follow in order to get that double-bye.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Maryland at Penn State &#8212; MSU needs Maryland to lose<\/li>\n<li>Illinois at Purdue &#8212; MSU needs Illinois to lose<\/li>\n<li>Nebraska at Iowa &#8212; MSU needs Iowa to lose<\/li>\n<li>Northwestern at Rutgers &#8212; MSU needs Northwestern to lose<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All four of these would have needed to hit if Rutgers held on to beat Minnesota earlier this week, but thankfully that didn&#8217;t happen (*cough* karma *cough*). Instead, Michigan State needs three of these to happen in order to finish in the top four.<\/p>\n<p>The three most likely to hit, in order:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Purdue beats Illinois<\/li>\n<li>Rutgers beats Northwestern<\/li>\n<li>Penn State beats Maryland<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If, somehow, Iowa loses to Nebraska at home and the other three also happen in Michigan State&#8217;s favor, the Spartans will get the 3-seed. If only one scenario hits, Michigan State gets a 6-seed. If two hit, MSU earns a 5-seed. And if three hit, MSU gets that double-bye with a 4-seed.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s say none of them hit, Michigan State basketball will get a 7-seed.<\/p>\n<p>With a big Sunday ahead of us, let&#8217;s root for a 4-for-4 day and a 3-seed in the Big Ten Tournament. We are all fans of the Nittany Lions, Boilermakers, Scarlet Knights, and Cornhuskers on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what we should be rooting for in the Big Ten on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[59,190,189],"class_list":["post-1694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}