After a disastrous night in Minneapolis, where do the Spartans stand in the Big Ten race and beyond?

It's time to provide Michigan State men's basketball fans with some perspective.

Prior to Wednesday night's disaster at Minnesota, MSU was 19-3 on the season, which was tied with the 2018 team - that won the Big Ten title outright - for the best start in program history.

The Spartans have high-quality wins over Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Iowa, Indiana, and at Washington. 

MSU's other three loses have all come against top-10 opponents in games where the Spartans were highly competitive. Michigan State led Duke with just over four minutes to play and it was just a one-point game at the two-minute mark.

Michigan State led Nebraska by three points at the four-minute mark and trailed by just two points, with the ball, and under 20 seconds to play. Last Friday night against Michigan, it was a one-point game at the four-minute mark before the Spartans ran out of gas.

The three other teams who have given Michigan State a loss have lost a combined four games - and one of them was Michigan's win over Nebraska.

MSU has not played well over the previous three games - that is clear - but overall the current Spartan team is objectively one of the best Izzo teams on record. It might not feel that way, but the data says it's true.

Michigan State is still ranked No. 11 in Kenpom and as Figure 1 below shows, MSU still has the profile of a National Title contender.

Figure 1: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot as of Feb. 6, 2026.

The current Michigan State team is solidly located in the region of the graph occupied by past NCAA champions. Overall, the offensive and defensive profile is somewhere between the 2019 Final Four team and last year's team that made the Elite Eight.

There are only ten other teams that currently fit the historical criteria of an NCAA champion, and only four of those teams have a clear edge over MSU: Arizona, Duke, Iowa State, and Michigan.

UConn, Florida, and Houston all have net efficiency metrics that are similar to MSU. Those three teams are more offensively minded. Kansas, Nebraska, and Gonzaga are also currently contenders, but all three teams would currently project to be a slight underdog to the Spartans on a neutral court.

Note that neither Purdue nor Illinois currently have defenses that qualify for consideration as possible NCAA champions, according to this method of analysis.

IF the Spartans can get a "B+"-level of performance from the majority of the roster, they can compete with anyone in the country. The problem is that the current level of performance overall has been more of a "C-" for almost two full weeks.

But this kind of mid-season slump is not uncommon for Tom Izzo teams. Recall that last year the Spartans lost three-of-four games in early February. At one point in 2020, MSU had lost four of five games and six of ten games before rallying to share the Big Ten title.

Even the 2019 Final Four team lost three straight Big Ten games in late January and early February. I will dig into this topic more soon, but suffice it to say that the current slump in East Lansing is far from abnormal.

The problem is that the quality of teams at the top of the Big Ten this year is much higher than normal. The top five Big Ten teams are all ranked in the top 12 of both Kenpom and the national polls. That has made the Spartans' current slump more costly than usual.

Past the paywall:

• Why Illinois has quietly become the Big Ten’s strongest title favorite

• How Michigan State’s most likely conference finish affects its Big Ten Tournament draw

• Where the Spartans currently sit on the NCAA seed lines — and how fragile that position is

• A region-by-region breakdown of how the top four seed lines are likely to be filled

• Why one specific region may offer MSU the cleanest path to the Final Four

• How geography, conference-avoidance rules, and the “S-curve” could collide to shape Michigan State’s bracket

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