Michigan State basketball: Bracketology projections after Illinois win

It’s been a successful season so far for Michigan State basketball, starting the year 16-2 overall and 7-0 in the Big Ten with 13 regular-season games remaining. Plus, the Spartans just won their biggest game of the season, downing Illinois 80-78 in East Lansing.

Experts lauded it as one of the best games of the season. Still, there was a lot of doubt left by officiating (even though it was even) because Illinois’ star player, Kasparas Jakucionis, fouled out in just nine minutes of action. Fans wanted to see what a full game of the star freshman would look like and luckily there will be another matchup in Champaign in February.

Michigan State still made a statement with the win and distanced the Illini further away from the No. 1 spot in the Big Ten standings. Realistically, if Michigan State is going to win the regular-season conference title, it will need to go 10-3 or 9-4 from this point on.

Weekly bracketology has been interesting to monitor this season just to see where the experts see Michigan State ending up. Early in the year, it was an 8/9-seed range and now it’s much higher thanks to this team exceeding expectations.

Here’s where the experts have Michigan State projected in the latest bracketology:

ESPN (Joe Lunardi): No. 3 seed in the East vs. Akron
CBS Sports (Jerry Palm): No. 2 seed in the Midwest vs. Quinnipiac
Bleacher Report: No. 3 seed in the West vs. Cleveland State
Andy Katz: No. 3 seed in the Midwest vs. Norfolk State
Team Rankings: No. 3 seed

The experts are very high on the Spartans after beating Illinois and this is the first time since 2019-20 that they’ve been projected this high in the NCAA Tournament. That’s what happens when Michigan State basketball gets back to the basics.

Tom Izzo has a legitimate title contender on his hands.