At 22-5 overall and 13-3 in Big Ten play, all eyes are fixed on Michigan State's chances at hanging a Big Ten regular season banner. So much so, that it's hard to not look to the next goal: landing a top seed in the NCAA tournament.

There are still 11 days to go until Selection Sunday, but it is never too early to take a glimpse at where the Spartans stand and how the committee might view them today.

Now, while its impossible to fully crack into the minds of the committee, we do know what metrics they look at in order to give us a pretty accurate picture of where Michigan State might be seeded, IF the season were to end today.

When creating the bracket, the selection committee (amongst other things) look at three ratings that are considered “resume metrics”. Basically looking at the body of work each team has done and basing their data off of that. There are also “predictive metrics” that take the body of work and look to predict how a team would do in hypothetical future matchups.

The three “resume metrics” the committee looks at are as follows:

- Strength of Record (SOR)

- Wins Above Bubble (WAB)

- Kevin Pauga Index (KPI)

When we take a look at where Michigan State ranks in these three metrics (No. 8 SOR, No. 7 WAB, and No. 8 KPI) we get an average ranking of 7.66. This is good for the 7th highest average resume in the country.

Therefore, with all of this taken into consideration, Michigan State would likely land on the 2-seed line. The path to a 1-seed does seem fairly unrealistic as of now, as there are currently 6 teams that possess resumes that align historically with that of a 1-seed. MSU would likely need to win out and have three of the teams ahead of them stumble down the stretch.

Don't just take my word for it, though, as this is the seed line where many bracketologists are currently slotting the Spartans right now.

According to The Bracket Matrix, a site that compiles the brackets of the top 105 bracketologists based off of their bracketology success the previous year, Michigan State's average seed is 2.70, which is good for the 10th best average on the Matrix.

It should also be noted that the current Bracket Matrix was updated February 24th but some of the brackets have not been updated since February 21st and thus have not updated since Michigan State's win at Michigan.

Obviously there is a long way to go when it comes to final seeding, but MSU fans should be breathing easy that Spartans are setting themselves up for a top-4 seed for the first time since 2019.

Below is a more in-depth look at the three “resume metrics”, what they mean, and how MSU stacks up within them individually.

To get started, its important to note that the metrics and ratings discussed here aren't just what I have chosen to highlight when it comes to Michigan State, but they are the exact rating systems the selection committee uses when constructing the bracket.

This realm of college basketball can often times be overwhelming and confusing, but let's do our best to break it all down. The term "resume" is thrown around a lot this time of year when talking about where a team may or may not land in the field of 68.

But how are resumes actually determined?

It isn't just wins and loss and where teams stand in the AP or Coaches Polls. Those metrics actually aren't really points of emphasis at all for the selection committee.

They also used predictive metrics such as Ken Pom, Torvik, and BPI. However, for the purpose of this article, we will use the results-based metrics to guess where Michigan State might land.

Any given team will stack up differently on any given metric, but if you average where each team ranks within these metrics, you can get a good picture of where the committee might slot them. Before we look at Michigan State's average amongst these three and where that stands compared to the rest of the country, let's take a look at each metric individually.

*Note: All of these rating systems change with each result across the national landscape. The ratings used for this article are as of January 27, 2025.

Strength of Record goes far beyond just a team's wins and losses and looks at these results when considering the strength of each opponent.

For example, a record of 20-2 for a Big Ten team presents a strength of schedule much more robust than that of a 20-2 team in the Missouri Valley Conference. While this may be a no-brainer between Power Four conferences and mid-major conferences, this is actually quantified in ESPN's Basketball Power Index (BPI). BPI is ESPN's measure of team ratings using advanced metrics; we won't go into their rationale today.

So where does Michigan State stack up?

Well to start, Michigan State slots in at No. 12 on the BPI, slightly lower to where they currently are in the AP Poll (No. 8). However, when you look at BPI's SOR metric, Michigan State ranks higher, coming in at No. 8. Part of this is due to Michigan State having played eleven games versus top 50 BPI-rated teams, and winning 8 of them.

If the tournament was seeded today, based solely off of SOR, Michigan State would be a 2-seed; but as we have stated, this isn't the only thing the committee looks at.

WAB is perhaps my favorite metric of the three we will discuss today. While the committee's version of WAB is used based on their own NET rankings, today we will be looking at WAB according to the Bart Torvik T-Rankings, which is a metric that comes from the data collected by Bart Torvik, and - like mentioned earlier - is used by the NCAA committee.

Similarly to Ken Pom, Bart Torvik uses offensive and defensive efficiency numbers to rank teams. Michigan State currently is rated No. 20 according to Torvik.

When it comes to WAB, we have all probably heard of the term "bubble" and it how it relates to the NCAA tournament. This is a term that Spartan fans have gotten all too familiar with over the last four seasons, often sweating because of it on Selection Sunday.

Basically, it is a term used to define a team that is right on the cusp of being in or out of the NCAA tournament. To put it another way, these are the teams that sit around the 45-mark in the NCAA's NET rankings (45 is used instead of 68 due to teams ranked lower in the NET earning auto-bids in mid-major conferences by winning their conference tournaments).

WAB is a way to compare a team's results versus how an average bubble team would fair. For example, in Michigan State's case, they beat Illinois who is currently ranked No. 4 according to Bart Torvik.

Let's say the average team beats Illinois at home 20% of the time. Therefore, you take the win (1.0) and subtract .20 to get +.80 Wins Above Bubble. When you add up whatever this number is for all a team's games, you get their WAB.

As things currently stand, Michigan State currently has a WAB of +5.1. In other words, compared to a team "on the bubble" if they had the same schedule, Michigan state would have 5.1 more wins than the average bubble team.

Nationally, this places MSU with the 7th highest WAB score. Based solely off of this, it would earn the Spartans a 2-seed in the tournament. However, we can't stop there, as there is one more crucial metric to consider.

KPI is a metric that looks at each's team's results game by game and provides a value to each result. According to the NCAA website: "KPI ranks every team’s wins and losses on a positive-to-negative scale, where the worst-possible loss receives a value of roughly around -1.0 and the best-possible win receives a value of roughly 1.0."

Factors used in determining a KPI score are opponent's KPI ranking, opponent's winning percentage, location of game, scoring margin, pace, and opponent's strength of schedule.

For those of you who are unaware, this metric was developed by Kevin Pauga, an Associate Athletic Director at Michigan State.

Why might this be important?

Michigan State knows first hand what metrics are used for seeding and Kevin Pauga helps Tom Izzo schedule games that will give Michigan State more opportunities to bolster their resume.

When ranking teams in this system, the KPI score for each game is averaged throughout the season to come up with their overall rating. This is different from WAB that adds all the game scores together. Because KPI averages the score, it is important for teams to have numerous wins over top teams in order to rank highly.

As things currently stand, KPI has Michigan States rating currently at .378, placing MSU at No. 8 in the country. MSU's current KPI game high is 1.01 in their road victory versus Michigan. Michigan State has been able to have their two highest KPI scores of the seasons in the last three games. If KPI was the lone metric the committee uses, MSU would be a 2-seed.

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