As of Saturday we’ll be exactly one month from college basketball’s NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday, which means that there is still time for plenty of shake-ups in the national picture … but as things stand right now, both Michigan State and Michigan could be in position to make long March runs.
Jerry Palm’s latest bracket projection at CBSSports.com places nine Big Ten teams, including Northwestern, in the NCAA Tournament field. Palm has Michigan as a No. 5 seed in the West region, with a second-round matchup against No. 12 Long Beach State. The winner of that hypothetical game then gets paired up with either No. 4 Marquette or No. 13 Middle Tennessee. Palm’s top seed in the West is Kentucky, with Duke as the No. 2.
Michigan State, meanwhile, lands a No. 3 in Palm’s most recent bracket — the added bonus there is that MSU is in the Midwest with second- and third-round games in Columbus, Ohio, and the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 in St. Louis. The Spartans’ first opponent is No. 14 Iona, with No. 6 Mississippi State and No. 11 Seton Hall meeting in the half of that setup.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi is even higher on the Spartans in his Feb. 10 Bracketology. Lunardi also put Michigan State in Columbus for the tournament’s opening weekend, but he has the Spartans as a two-seed, up against No. 15 Valparaiso. Awaiting the winner of that game would be either No. 7 Virginia or No. 10 Kansas State. Lunardi’s top seed in that West region is Missouri.
Lunardi is also slightly more amped-up about Michigan’s current position — he has the Wolverines as a four-seed in the East region, opening with games in Nashville. Michigan’s opponent in Lunardi’s bracket is No. 13 Iona, with Creighton grabbing the No. 5 seed and playing the winner of an opening-round game between North Carolina State and Seton Hall.