Spartan Bracketology: February 6th

Well last week MSU was a nearly consensus number one seed, with just one bracket putting them in the two slot. This week, everyone has them down to a two seed, and that was before last night’s horrific loss at Illinois. None of the brackets have been updated to reflect that outcome, so the Spartans may slide even more when the next round of bracket predictions come out.

We only had four brackets to check out this week, as the NCAA has not updated theirs. This is likely due to the fact that they have the Top Sixteen preview show coming out this weekend. The committee will give the top 16 teams as of right now, in a show airing at 12:30 eastern, an hour and a half before MSU tips with Minnesota in East Lansing.

That should give us a good idea of where MSU is in the minds of the committee, and will likely lead to a sweeping update of the brackets across all the different sites.

One update from the NCAA is the NET Rankings, where Michigan State is down to ninth.

As for now, MSU is listed as a two seed in all of the other four brackets. SBNation and CBSSports have MSU in the South Region, FoxSports has them in the East, and ESPN has them in the West.

The four different sites all have different number one seeds in MSU’s bracket. Those possibilities are Duke, Virginia, Tennessee, and Gonzaga.

Both the CBSSports and the ESPN brackets have MSU facing off with last year’s Cinderella Loyola Chicago in the first round.

SBNation has the Spartans getting a first round rematch with last year’s first round opponent Bucknell. FoxSports has MSU and Vermont squaring off first.

Interestingly enough two of the brackets, SBNation and Fox, both have MSU facing the winner of a Florida State and Alabama matchup in the second round.

In addition to all four projections having different number one seeds for MSU, they also have four different number three seeds. Those are Marquette, Virginia Tech, Houston, and Louisville.

As mentioned up top these are likely to be subject to massive change depending on what the committee releases on Saturday.

MSU took a couple bad losses, but so have most other teams. The Spartans have still done well against top competition and have several games remaining to pick up quality wins.

On the flip side, if this slide continues, things could get bad in a hurry.