Michigan State basketball: Up to 4-seed in one NCAA Tournament projection

One expert has Michigan State basketball shockingly projected as a 4-seed in the NCAA Tournament next month.

Selection Sunday is about four weeks away, meaning that now more than ever is an important time to improve the NCAA Tournament resume. Thankfully for Michigan State basketball fans, the Spartans have done just that.

Their win over Illinois as well as their 80-72 win over Penn State helped improve their tournament resume immensely.

A fun website called Bracket Matrix compiles data from 103 different experts who project NCAA Tournament fields. One example is Joe Lunardi’s ESPN bracketology which I’m sure most of you have heard of. His projection is part of this data along with 102 others as well.

The Spartans were comfortably in the tournament 10 days ago when we last looked at this data, but let’s see how much they’ve improved after their last two wins.

Michigan State NCAA Tournament projections

As of Feb. 16, Michigan State is on average an 8.31 seed in the NCAA tournament. They are also the highest 8-seed overall, so they are extremely close to moving up to a 7-seed and avoiding the 1-seed in the opening weekend of the tournament.

Of the 103 bracket projections, 101 of them have MSU making the field of 68. I don’t have a reasonable explanation as to why two “experts” left MSU out, as it seems quite clear they would be in the tournament if the season ended today. One expert, in particular, has Michigan State as a 4-seed in the tournament. Again, I wouldn’t put MSU that high, but I’ll take it.

Other Big Ten teams found on this site include Purdue who is a 1-seed in all 103 projections. Wisconsin has a 4.03 average seed and Illinois comes in with a 4.13 average. Northwestern finds itself as a 9-seed with an 8.85 average and Nebraska narrowly sneaks in with a 10.51 average. That completes the list for Big Ten teams, with no other conference foe appearing in even one bracket.

Seeding expectations

The Spartans no doubt still have work to do to guarantee their NCAA Tournament spot, but that task is feeling less daunting than a few weeks ago. At this point, the Spartans are just trying to get as high of a seed as possible. In my opinion, a 6-seed is the worst seed Michigan State would want to get. Avoiding the 1-seed by falling on the 8/9-seed line is critical, and even avoiding a second-round matchup against a 2-seed would be nice too. So a 6-seed or better would be ideal for MSU.

The Spartans’ next game is against Michigan on Saturday. This game doesn’t provide an opportunity to improve MSU’s resume much, but a loss would definitely hurt it. So the Spartans need to beat their rival on Saturday if they want a chance at a 6-seed.