Do the Wisconsin Badgers need to beat the Michigan State Spartans? They do… but it doesn’t have to be this Friday night in East Lansing. Yes, Wisconsin can’t view itself as a top-tier team in the Big Ten if it doesn’t walk away with one win against Michigan State this season. Yes, Wisconsin can’t let the same MSU team which just lost by 29 at Purdue to walk over the Badgers this season.
However, Friday night is not a win-at-all-costs game, especially after Wisconsin defeated Maryland. (THAT was the especially important game of the week for UW.) The bigger picture involving Wisconsin and Michigan State is that after Friday’s game, the Badgers and Spartans will do it all over again two weeks later, on Saturday, February 1 in Madison at the Kohl Center. Two games, 15 days apart, all before Super Bowl Sunday.
Wisconsin would love it if it could sweep the Spartans, but the main (reasonable) goal is to split these two upcoming games with Michigan State. It is highly unlikely that any Big Ten team will sweep a two-game set from Tom Izzo’s team. Wisconsin, by splitting, would gain on most of the Big Ten — instead of falling behind — if it can split two against Michigan State.
This brings us into a conversation about college basketball which emerges every year. The terminology might not be familiar or constant, however, so let me use my own terms and expressions to convey these larger ideas:
When a team such as Wisconsin — likely to make the NCAA Tournament, but hardly a lock — goes about its business, there are different kinds of games it must deal with.
There is the “don’t lose” game. What do I mean by that? Simple: Don’t take a huge hit to your resume. This season, that means don’t lose to Nebraska or Northwestern. Those are the two biggest resume-killing losses a team can have. Avoid them. There isn’t any benefit to be found from a win. Beating Nebraska doesn’t improve a resume. Losing, though, drags the resume down, so this is defined in terms of “avoiding a loss” rather than “winning.”
There is the “battleground” game, a game against a team in a similar situation. Winning means more leverage, losing means less leverage, but the cost of losing isn’t catastrophic (unless we’re in the first or second week of March and there are no more opportunities to improve a resume). The cost of losing isn’t enormous because the opponent is good and won’t drag down the resume.
There is the “resume improvement” game, in which a team lacking a complete resume needs to significantly boost the quality of its profile. This is generally reserved for situations when a bubble team or a team near the bubble gets a top opponent at home and has a chance to relieve any and all remaining bubble pressure by securing a win. The team’s bubble situation might not be terrible, but it is a “remove all doubt” situation in which winning removes bubble pressure once and for all.
Finally, a college basketball team might encounter an “opportunity” game. This is for teams which have solidified NCAA Tournament positioning and won’t get penalized at all for losing, but can move up multiple seed lines with a win. There is no cost to losing, but a chance to improve one’s tournament odds with a win.
Friday’s game in East Lansing fits somewhere between a “resume improvement” game and an “opportunity” game for Wisconsin. One could make the argument from either side. I personally lean toward the latter. I think that when UW plays Michigan State on the road, it’s purely an opportunity to grow. A loss would not represent a backward step in any way.
Here is the nuance, however: If Wisconsin does lose to Michigan State and then picks up another loss in the coming two weeks, that February 1 reunion game with Michigan State in the Kohl Center would very clearly become less of an opportunity game and much more of a resume improvement game.
We come back to the basic reality that Wisconsin doesn’t need to sweep two games from Michigan State, but it needs to get one. The Badgers don’t have to win on Friday, but they do have to beat MSU before Super Sunday, February 2. That’s life in the Big Ten in 2020.