The Final Four Is Not On The Schedule - A Podcast Discussing Michigan State Basketball.

March 14, 2023: Michigan State garnered a 7 seed in the East and will face the Pac-12 (soon to be Big Ten) USC Trojans in the First Round in Columbus, OH on Friday the 17th. Tom Izzo has a 1-0 record against the Trojans in the NCAA tournament a few years ago but that will not play much of a factor in this first round matchup.

Basically, these teams are a little bit similar in that they have similar offensive and defensive efficiency metrics and were marred by season with inconsistency. But that level of inconsistency is probably typical of most teams who find themselves in the 7-10 seed lines. So the ultimate question to ask about this game is not the specifics of the teams as perhaps which teams decide to show up for the game. And for MSU - that means how well does AJ Hoggard play and is he an effective distributor.

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March 12,2023: Today was the NCAA bracket reveal day and MSU will be heading to its 25th straight NCAA tournament putting Tom Izzo as having the longest streak for a coach in NCAA history. The Spartans will play Friday as the 7 seed against 10 seed USC in the East Regional. 8 Big Ten teams made the field with Rutgers getting left out despite being in most brackets.

We discussed the brackets, Rutgers, and the surprises with top bracketologist, Dom Lese, of Bracketology. Dom makes his picks and then Rod breaks down the brackets region by region along with Eric providing a little history of what predicts success getting to the Final Four based on seeding and MSU's results in the Big Ten Tournament (hints: there aren't any).

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March 10, 2023: Michigan State arrived in Chicago for the Big Ten Tournament after securing a double bye and got to face 13 seed Ohio State coming off two straight days of games. Despite the lack of rest and being down Freshman phenom, Brice Sensabaugh to injury, the Buckeyes handled the Spartans quite easily Friday afternoon.

This was a game where MSU didn't do much well; poor defense, horrific shooting, weak rebounding, and getting beaten to most loose balls. The only silver lining of today's performance is that they have at least one more game to play as they await their matchup for the first round of the NCAA tournament where we suspect they will either be a high 8 or low 7 seed. We can only hope that the locked in and focused AJ Hoggard that we had seen down the stretch of the regular season returns for the NCAAs and that MSU can shore up its once solid defense.

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March 9, 2023: It's March which means the postseason is here and it is one-and-done time. MSU plays its first game in the Big Ten Tournament in the quarterfinals with a 4-13 matchup against Ohio State. The winner of the game will play the winner of the 1-9 game between Purdue and Rutgers. In a scenario similar to last year's tournament, the Spartans will open up play against their last opponent who they defeated on senior day only 6 days ago in East Lansing.

Ohio State will be playing their third game in as many days while MSU will just be getting started in Chicago. Time will tell whether the extra rest will result in tired legs for the Buckeyes or rust on the Spartan's shooting. The key questions for MSU to answer over the next few days are 1) can they shore up their defense, 2) be solid on the boards, and 3) continue to shoot the lights out from 3?

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March 7, 2023: In what is shaping up to be the most unpredictable Big Ten Tournament in history, Michigan State enters as the fourth seed after securing an improbable double bye. Only through a series of fortunate results that almost all broke MSU's way on Sunday, the Spartans will be able to wait until Friday to take on either the 5 seed Iowa Hawkeyes or 12 Wisconsin/13 Ohio State.

This year has seen some of the most parity ever in that 5 teams tied for fifth place and 12 of the teams are either on the bubble or safely in the NCAA tournament field. It sets up what will likely be a volatile tournament where anything can happen except (probably) the high seeds sweeping to the finals. Rod and Eric sit down to go over MSU's path and the various intriguing storylines with this years tourney.

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March 6, 2023: Bracketologist Dominic Lese joins us again to break down the NCAA tourney chances of the Spartans and the rest of the Big Ten as we prepare to enter the Big Ten Tournament. Dom handicaps the Spartans seeding chances and places them anywhere from a 5 to a 7.

However, there are also a number of teams on the bubble and are at risk of missing the tournament altogether. They include Michigan, Rutgers, Wisconsin, and Penn State. We discussed the rest of the Big Ten and even what the implications are for early and late games in the conference tournament.

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March 4, 2023: Michigan State closed its regular season on Saturday with an 84-78 win over the Ohio State Buckeyes to sweep them for the season. This game was much closer than the 21 point beat down in Columbus where OSU couldn't hit open shots but tonight MSU relied on lethal outside shooting. The Spartans now await the results of Sunday's game to find out their seeding in the Big Ten Tournament which could include a double bye or a matchup on Thursday.

This team is very quickly starting to look like a team that has a run in it if it can shore up its defense and add a little more transition game to get easy buckets. We may learn a lot more about this team and what they may become in Chicago next week.

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March 2, 2023: The end of the regular season comes to a conclusion on Saturday as MSU welcomes in the Buckeyes from Ohio State. In what has to be one of the most challenging years for a team with key injuries, an insane travel schedule, and then a mass shooting on campus leading to a home game cancelation it is remarkable how well the team has actually done. It's always an emotional day on Senior Day but we suspect they will handle it well as they have in multiple emotional games to date.

Ohio State is coming into the game on a two game winning streak which is notable after they had dropped 14 of their previous 15. However, the Buckeyes will have a depleted roster without Junior big man, Zed Key, which forces them to start 6'11" Freshman Felix Opara with no size in reserves. It will certainly be an interesting matchup and one that will significantly affect the seeding for MSU in the Big Ten Tournament.

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February 28, 2023: In one of the starkest differences between halves, MSU barely managed to maintain contact with Nebraska going into halftime 38-26 despite only scoring 10 points in the first 12 minutes of the game. Horrendous shooting and even worse defense gave Nebraska a lead as big as 15 which turned out to be not nearly enough for the Cornhuskers.

The second half was an entirely different game as MSU shot the lights out from 3 hitting 12-17 and scored 54 points while holding Nebraska to just 29 points. That allowed the Spartans to cruise in for an 80-67 win on the road that should solidify their place in the tourney and likely not drop below an 8/9 seed.

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February 27, 2023: Today we were joined by Dominic Lese, of Bracketometry.com who is the #2 ranked bracketologist in the country per Bracket Matrix. In 2022, he correctly predicted all 68 teams in the field and was within one seed line of all the picks. Often, there are national figures who provide their picks and projected brackets but just aren't that close in their predictions (Lunardi of ESPN is 88th, Palm of CBS is #125).

In this episode, we looked at MSU's projected seeding, the rest of the Big Ten, how the selection process works, and more. We got into a very interesting discussion on the difference of predictive analytics and selective analytics and how they affect the field.

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