{"id":19854,"date":"2024-11-13T15:57:39","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T20:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=19854"},"modified":"2024-11-13T15:57:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T20:57:39","slug":"michigan-state-basketball-rises-to-6-seed-in-latest-bracketology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=19854","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State basketball rises to a 6-seed in latest bracketology"},"content":{"rendered":"

While we’re in the final stretch of football season with a bowl game on the line, many fans have turned their attention to Michigan State basketball<\/a>, and how could you not? The Spartans seem to be better than expected despite losing to No. 1 Kansas on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Tom Izzo has returned some excitement to the program with a couple of transfers and a star freshman who has been a pleasant surprise.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ:\u00a0<\/strong>5 reasons for optimism after loss to No. 1 Kansas<\/a><\/p>\n

On top of that, the Spartans have an exciting non-conference schedule that already featured the No. 1 team in the country but could also see Michigan State facing UConn or North Carolina in the Maui Invitational.<\/p>\n

Michigan State began the season unranked and had minimal expectations, but it’s starting to look like that’s going to change. The team has played well outside of 3-point shooting and the Spartans are 2-1, receiving the sixth-most votes of teams just outside the AP Top 25 this week. Also, Joe Lunardi had Michigan State slotted in as an 8-seed to begin the season, pretty much flirting with the bubble yet again, but on Tuesday (before the Kansas game), he bumped the Spartans up to a 6-seed in his bracketology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While it’s still very early, it’s a good sign that experts are seeing something in this team. While the 6-seed projection was before the Kansas loss, I can bet that it won’t change much, if at all, when he comes out with his new bracketology next week. All experts picked Michigan State to lose.<\/p>\n

How good are the teams on the 6-seed line? For reference, Kentucky, Florida, and Illinois were all 6-seeds as well and Michigan State had a “trending up” arrow next to its name.<\/p>\n

Other Big Ten teams to earn spots in the early bracketology were:<\/p>\n

No. 4: Purdue (trending down)
\nNo. 5: Indiana, Ohio State (trending up)
\nNo. 6: Illinois (trending up)
\nNo. 7: UCLA (trending down)
\nNo. 8: Oregon
\nNo. 10: Rutgers (last four byes)
\nNo. 11: Michigan (trending down, last four in), Maryland<\/p>\n

Lunardi has 10 teams in his field with Iowa, Wisconsin, and USC all on the bubble and being either the first four out or the next four out.<\/p>\n

In this scenario, Michigan State basketball would be the fourth or fifth-best Big Ten team and one of the three that are trending up. The Spartans have a legit shot to win the Big Ten this year and finally get into the NCAA Tournament comfortably again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spartans began the season as an 8-seed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[59,190,189,504,211],"class_list":["post-19854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19854","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=19854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}