Michigan State basketball will be back in East Lansing when they figure out their NCAA tournament fate.
The Spartans got knocked out of the Big Ten basketball tournament on Saturday in a 77-74 loss to Wisconsin. Now, the conference champions await where they will play in March Madness. The NCAA tournament selection show begins at 6 p.m. on CBS, where all 68 teams in the field find out their first-round matchup and overall brackets.
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Michigan State, which had won eight straight games before losing to Wisconsin and won the conference regular-season crown, is projected as a 2-seed in the Big Dance. MSU’s eight-game streak all came over Quad 1 teams, one of the criteria used by the selection committee. MSU is 27-6.
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What seed is Michigan State in March Madness? Bracketology projection
USA TODAY projects Michigan State as a No. 2 seed in the West region, playing Montana in the first round. Gonzaga and Oklahoma are the projected 7-10 matchup awaiting in the second round, while Michigan is on the top half of the bracket as the No. 5 seed and Florida is the No. 1 seed of the region.
ESPN projects Michigan State as the No. 2 seed in the South region. MSU would play Bryant, winners of the America East conference, with Missouri and West Virginia as the 7-10 game. Kentucky (3-seed) and Illinois (6-seed) are two potential Sweet 16 opponents if MSU makes it there, and Auburn is the No. 1 seed.
CBS has MSU as the No. 2 seed in the South region playing Norfolk State in the first round. Missouri and Utah State are the projected No. 7 and No. 10 seeds, while Auburn is the top-seeded team in the bracket. Fox also has MSU in the South region, where Auburn is No. 1, but has the Spartans playing No. 15 seed Bryant in the first round.
Most bracketology projections have Michigan State as a No. 2 seed along with the same other teams, Alabama, Tennessee and St. John’s. MSU is projected as the last or second-to-last No. 2 seed, which is why most projections have them in the same region as Auburn, the projected top overall seed. Every projection has Michigan State playing first-round and second-round games in Cleveland, the closest first-round location.
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