Is St. Patrick’s Day lucky for Michigan State basketball?

Michigan State basketball has played on St. Patrick’s Day 10 times in its history and Friday will mark 11. Is this a lucky day?

On a fall Saturday in East Lansing, it’s common to see droves of fans walking around campus and eventually filling Spartan Stadium in their green and white. The same can be said about Breslin, Jenison, Munn, etc. No matter the MSU event, fans sport their green and white throughout the year. When Spartans see another fan in their green and white around the state, they greet each other with a “Go Green!” and a reply of “Go White!”

Then there is St. Patrick’s Day, where everyone wears green no matter their college athletics fandom. And if you don’t wear green, you run the risk of getting pinched by some random person who gets way too into the holiday.

Every year St. Patrick’s Day falls during the most important period of the NCAA Men’s Basketball season. Either near the conference tournaments or the NCAA Tournament. On this day, sports fans and non-sports fans alike gather at their local watering holes to consume beverages with green food coloring.

With Michigan State basketball making its 25th consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament, you can probably guess that the team has played its fair share of games on St. Patrick’s Day. Playing on the holiday when almost everyone is wearing the color of your team may seem like a good luck charm, but hasn’t seemed to pay off for the Spartans over the years.

Most seasons MSU has avoided playing on St. Patrick’s Day, but when they have played it has resulted in a less than stellar record of 3-7, though the Spartans have won their last two March 17 contests.

The most recent memory Spartan fans likely have of playing on St. Patrick’s Day came in 2019. MSU defeated Michigan for the third time in 22 days in the Big Ten Tournament title game in Chicago while the Chicago River was dyed green. The Spartans built off that momentum and made yet another run to the Final Four.

Two years prior in 2017, Michigan State opened the NCAA Tournament with a 20-point win over Miami (FL) on St. Patrick’s Day, before getting bounced by No. 1 seed Kansas by 20 points. To find the other lone win on the holiday for MSU, you’d need to go back to 1990. That season, the Spartans earned a No. 1 seed and defeated UC-Santa Barbara on St. Patrick’s Day in the second round, before losing their next game in the Sweet 16 in overtime to Georgia Tech (his foot was on the line).

Between 1990 and 2017, MSU lost seven straight postseason games played on St. Patrick’s Day, including a second-round NIT loss to Florida State in 1997, which marked the last postseason game before their current NCAA Tournament streak began.

Other notable March 17 losses include Draymond Green’s triple-double in a 2011 loss to UCLA in which the Spartans almost overcame an 18-point halftime deficit, and Jud Heathcote’s final game as the Michigan State head coach, getting upset by 14-seed Weber State.

When the 2006 bracket was announced, many green and white fans probably loved the idea of opening the tournament on St. Patrick’s Day vs a mid-major program like George Mason. The Patriots went on to upset Michigan State basketball, and three other teams on their way to becoming at the time the second 11-seed to reach the Final Four (three more have accomplished that since).

Whatever the reason is for Michigan State’s struggles on St. Patrick’s Day, we know Spartan fans will proudly be wearing their green (and white) this Friday at 12:15 p.m. ET, and we’ll continue to do so, win or lose.

Go Green, and Erin go Bragh.