NCAA Basketball Mailbag: Michigan State’s woes, Morant vs. Williamson and more
By Brian Rauf
What are the biggest NCAA Basketball and NBA Draft questions you have this week? We answer them all in this week’s Mailbag.
January was the time when this season’s elite teams separated themselves from everyone else and, so far, February is working to undo all that work those teams did in earlier months.
The first week of February has already been filled with a number of really big upsets. Marquette lost at home to a reeling St. John’s team, Buffalo was upset by Bowling Green, NC State scored 24 points in a game, and Kansas lost (again) to Kansas State, putting their consecutive Big 12 title streak in serious jeopardy.
Of course, the biggest loser of the month has been Michigan State. The Spartans find themselves on a three-game losing streak after being upset by both Indiana and Illinois over the past week, raising some serious questions about this group.
We start this week’s mailbag by tackling those questions, including what this streak means for Michigan State’s Final Four hopes.
Do you have a college basketball or NBA Draft question you want to have answered? Join the conversation on Twitter @brauf33. Thanks as always to those who contributed this week.
Do you see MSU turning this skid around and can they still make a run come March? – @Cory_Linsner (Cory)
Will they turn it around? I think they will, but it depends on what you mean by turn it around.
Will they get back to being a top-five caliber team? No. I think we’ve seen during this stretch that their offense can’t reach that level consistently without Joshua Langford. But will they stop losing to teams like Illinois and stabilize themselves? 100 percent. They have too much talent and Izzo is too good of a coach for them not to.
I still think their projection for March is a second-weekend team. They’re going to get a high seed and make the Sweet 16 but, again, I don’t see them as a Final Four team without Langford.
With Michigan state’s two upset losses, who do you now see winning the conference regular season title? How about the conference tournament? Who’s best equipped to play multiple games in a week?
— Bobby Sheridan TSR Sports ⚾️🏈🏀🎾⛳️ (@SheridanReport) February 7, 2019
I had Sparty winning it before this three-game losing streak and I think they’re still very much in the mix. Michigan has developed their own offensive problems lately but are the most talented team in the conference. Then there’s Purdue, who doesn’t have any games left against either Michigan school, which sets up well for them. In the end, I think two of these teams will be co-champs. Give me Michigan and Purdue to split it.
With that, I still think Michigan will win the conference tournament. There are going to be a ton of upsets with how wacky the Big Ten has been this year, but I still trust Beilein.