When Michigan State beat Minnesota in Thursday’s Big Ten Tournament game, the Spartans looked a surefire lock for the NCAA Tournament.
But then Saturday happened.
We saw a bevy of “bid stealers” emerge on Saturday, as Colorado, North Carolina, San Diego State and Florida Atlantic — all projected tournament teams — lost in their conference tournaments to teams on the wrong side of the bubble picture.
Instead, NC State, Oregon, New Mexico and either Duquesne or VCU are going dancing.
That means four teams who though they were safe — MSU included — are now closer to the cut line as the 6 p.m. Selection Sunday show approaches.
Luckily for Spartans fans, it still appears they’ve done enough to keep their quarter-century streak of consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances in tact.
MSU was projected as a No. 10 seed prior to Saturday’s mayhem, and the bracketologists still had them on the 10-line in Sunday morning’s projections — they just might be headed to Dayton for the First Four.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has the Spartans among the “last four in,” heading to Dayton to face Oklahoma, with a West Region matchup against Gonzaga in Salt Lake City awaiting the winner.
Jerry Palm of CBS, meanwhile, has MSU playing a de facto road game against Dayton for the rights to the 10-seed in the East and a first-round matchup against Florida.
USA Today’s bracketologists have the Spartans avoiding Dayton as a 9-seed, taking on Dayton in Charlotte, with UNC awaiting as the No. 1 seed.
What's bolstering the 14-loss Spartans' résumé is a top-25 NET ranking and a top-15 strength of schedule, per the NET. While MSU only has three Quad-1 wins, they have no losses outside the top two quadrants, unlike some of their bubble countreparts.
It appears this could be the first time in tournament history we see two 10-seeds have play in the First Four. Since it was introduced in 2011, the vast majority of First Four games (18 of 24) have been between 11-seeds.
On four occasions 12-seeds have played in Dayton, while the early days of the First Four saw one matchup between 14s and one between 13s.
The good news for MSU fans, should the Spartans find themselves in the First Four, is those teams have had quite a bit of tournament success.
Every year besides 2019 has seen an at-large First Four team win at least one game, while five teams have reached the second weekend after starting out in Dayton.
On two occasions — 2011 VCU and 2021 UCLA — a team has gone from First Four to Final Four.
Meanwhile, our state’s other team headed to the Big Dance is Oakland University, thanks to the program’s first-ever Horizon League Tournament title. Most bracketologists have the Golden Grizzlies projected as a 14-seed.
We’ll learn the tournament fate of the Golden Grizzlies and Spartans on CBS’ Selection Show at 6 p.m. Sunday.