INDIANAPOLIS – If Michigan State was going to lose again this season, better Saturday than any other time.

Wisconsin deserved the win at least as much as MSU in this one, right down to John Tonje’s clean swipe of Jeremy Fears Jr.’s last-second running 3-point attempt. And so the Spartans go home a day before Selection Sunday after a 77-74 Big Ten tournament semifinal loss, reminded that they can lose. And that letting an opposing star heat up, foul trouble, missed open shots and losing a little bit of poise can sink a season.

Otherwise, no big deal.

This wasn’t a Big Ten title shared title. The Spartans won the league by three games. They had nothing to prove here. Only something to win. They didn’t win it. So be it.

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What’s next comes with higher stakes. Jaden Akins will have to be better than 2-for-8 from the floor against quality teams. Jase Richardson will have to be more careful about picking up needless fouls. The coaching staff will have to be more careful about playing stretches without both Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper on the court (more on that below). And if you get a 13-4 lead, keep your foot on the pedal.

MSU got beat by a good Wisconsin team and a great performance by Tonje — 32 points, 8-for-15 from the floor, 4-for-10 from deep, 12-for-14 from the line, with seven rebounds. He was the best player on the court Saturday. During the Spartans’ eight-game winning streak, rarely would you say the other team had the best player on the court. Most of the time, the opposing team’s best player struggled (including Tonje a couple weeks ago). The Spartans made it so.

This will sting because it’s a loss for a team that’s come to hate losing and doesn’t do it often. But other than a Big Ten tournament title — which is not nothing — this isn’t a loss to stew over, as long as the Spartans heed the necessary lessons.

The NCAA tournament fun is fast approaching. MSU (27-6) has a chance to be a major player.

2. Lessons to learn for MSU

There are some lessons to take from this game as the Spartans head into NCAA tournament. No. 1, strength in numbers isn’t to infinity. They cannot afford to have Jaxon Kohler and Carson Cooper both on the bench against many matchups. If one of them picks up two early fouls, it might be worth chancing it for a while. Because what we saw Saturday is the fear — a 9-1 run by Wisconsin to close the half, with Cooper sitting after a long stretch on the court and Kohler sitting the final 11 minutes (after good start on the glass). 

Kohler has become essential as a rebounder and presence — especially against Wisconsin. He had 16 boards in the first matchup. He had four in six first-half minutes Saturday and finished with seven in 16 minutes (and really eight, but he was fouled on an offensive rebound with 3:24 left and not given credit for it). He was a menace on the glass down the stretch, but not on the court enough, after those two early fouls and a third with 17:50 remaining in the game, sitting then until the 6:43 mark. Wisconsin against did most of its work with Kohler on the bench.

Kohler’s plus-minus was plus-9 in those 16 minutes Saturday. He finished with seven points, including a late 3 (from the missed the front end of a one-and-one trip to the line). The only other player with a better plus-minus was Cooper who was plus-15 in 28 minutes, fishing with eight points and 10 rebounds. That’s sometimes a flawed stat. Not Saturday. 

Another consideration is to call a timeout if you’ve got Kohler and Jaden Akins at the scorer’s table waiting to come in for an extended amount of time during a key stretch of the game. They were there for more than two minutes without a stoppage in play, as Wisconsin’s John Tonje and John Blackwell each made 3s. If you want them in the game, make it happen. Minutes in the postseason are precious.

3. MSU likely heads to Cleveland as a 2 seed

There is a real argument that the Spartans deserve a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament — with 14 Quad 1 wins (via the NCAA’s NET rankings) and an 8-1 finish to the season, including road wins at Illinois, Michigan and Maryland. But if the folks who project these things are correct, MSU is locked in as a No. 2 seed — every bracketologist in the Bracket Matrix (one of the great phrases only in college basketball) has the Spartans as a 2 seed. MSU’s region is still to be determined. But the Spartans will almost certainly start next Friday in Cleveland against a 15 seed.

MSU has earned this — two matchups as a decent favorite in front of what will likely be a heavy home court advantage. It’s been six seasons since they had a draw close to this, opening in 2019 with Bradley and then facing Minnesota in Des Moines on their way to a Final Four. A year before that, as a 3 seed beginning in Detroit, MSU infamously fell to 11-seed Syracuse in second round in a game that still irks the Spartan faithful.

The last time MSU was this high a seed and this close to home, the Spartans were a 1 seed in 2012 and opened with wins over LIU-Brooklyn and St. Louis in Columbus, Ohio, before losing out west in the Sweet 16. 

It’s a great opportunity, one that this weekend wasn’t likely to shift one way or another. The Spartans’ resume was going to be complete after Saturday either way, because the NCAA tournament selection committee doesn’t factor the Big Ten tournament final in their seeding, because it’s too late in the process.

There will be no sweating the bubble on this Selection Sunday. Just learning the opponent and draw in what has a chance to be a memorable NCAA tournament for the Spartans. They’re good enough. We can trust that now.

Contact Graham Couch at [email protected]. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.