After getting robbed of an NIT invitation last year, Michigan State is back for more, which is to say they haven’t discontinued their men’s basketball program and will therefore be fair game for us to toss about as an NIT team until at least mid-January.
Of course, though, there are obstacles. Here are the biggest ones:
Winning Games
Win too many games, you don’t make the NIT, and with plenty of returning talent and a solid recruiting class on its way in, the Spartans might well win too many games.
The Big Ten
Lose too many games, you don’t make the NIT, and in the Big Ten these days, with its bloated schedule and its depth in the upper-middle tier, it’s hard to lose the right games to find yourself playing in the world’s greatest tournament come March.
Tom Izzo’s Blind Rage
We all know this: If Michigan State is in NIT territory, Tom Izzo will be upset, and who knows what he might do. Certainly not me. Hard to play in a tournament when Mr. March has driven a snowplow through every college locker room in America.
