It's officially March and that means that the NCAA Tournament is on the horizon and all of the conferences are finishing up their seasons.  Two big programs in the Big Ten are set to face off twice this week and those games are going to be very important in terms of the tourney.

Number 3 ranked, Michigan faces off twice with an unranked Michigan State team this week and both programs would love to sweep their opponent.  As of right now, Michigan has just about secured a number 1 seed in the tournament.  Unless they put up a couple of losses to their cross-state rival, MSU.

Michigan State is staring down the possibility of not making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 22 years.  MSU has the third longest NCAA Tournament streak with only Duke (24 in a row) and Kansas (30 in a row) with longer streaks.

If MSU can both of their games against Michigan it will likely result in a tournament birth regardless of their Big Ten Tournament results.  If they split the series, MSU will have to do well in the Big Ten Tournament to get into the tournament.  But, if they lose both of their games against Michigan, you can pretty much count them out of the big dance unless they win the Big Ten Tournament.

Both programs have one game before they start their 2 game series later this week.  Michigan takes on 5th ranked Illinois on Tuesday at 7pm on ESPN and MSU plays Indiana on Tuesday at 8pm on BTN.

Here are the two games between Michigan and MSU later in the week and where you can watch them:

  • Michigan hosts MSU - Thursday, March 4 at 7:00pm on TBD
  • MSU hosts Michigan - Sunday, March 7 at 7:30pm on CBS

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