It is amazing how quickly things changed in the final few weeks of the Big Ten Men's basketball race. On the evening of February 11, following the Michigan State Spartans' head-scratching home loss to the Indiana Hoosiers, I imagined that the rest of February would play out much differently than it did.

As I looked at the Spartans' impending gauntlet of games at Illinois, home versus Purdue, at Michigan, and at Maryland, I thought that to stay in the Big Ten race, Michigan State would need to split those four games, as long as one of the wins happened in Ann Arbor.

I believed that if the Spartans could enter March with five Big Ten losses, they would have a solid shot to run the table and at least share the regular season title with a combination of Purdue, Wisconsin, or Michigan. I honestly thought Michigan had the longest odds of that group.

But things did not play out that way at all. Not only did the Spartans win all four of those critical late February games, Purdue and Wisconsin both adsorbed a head scratcher loss or two of their own.

Meanwhile, outside of a double-digit loss at home to the Spartans, the Michigan Wolverines continue to win every other game by the slimmest margins possible. On Thursday night, the Wolverines needed a last second three-pointer from the logo to avoid an upset loss to Rutgers.

As a side note, while the Michigan buzzer-beater on Thursday night was cute, I suggest that next time they try it from a little farther away from the basket, on the road, against a team with a winning record, and in a game where they didn't trail almost the entire final 25 minutes of the game. It's just a thought.

With just three games to play, the Big Ten race looks like it will come right down to the wire. A big reason why is due to the Spartans' thrilling win at Maryland, which should not really have been as thrilling as it turned out.

How did Michigan State get the win in College Park and what does it all mean for the Big Ten race?

As always, let's dig into the data.

Figure 1 below provides an analysis for Michigan State's 58-55 win at Maryland on Feb. 26, 2025.

Why did Michigan State win?

The Spartans held a narrow edge in effective field goal percentage as both teams were well below 40% in that category. Turnovers were almost even, with Maryland having a slight advantage in both raw numbers (11 to 12) and rate. The other two factors were blowouts, but in opposite directions.

Michigan State dominated the boards, especially on defense, netting nine more offensive rebounds than the Terrapins. However, for the second road game in a row, the opponent was given far more free throw attempts than Michigan State, despite the fact that the Spartans lead the Big Ten in free throw rate.

Maryland outscored the Spartans by 11 points from the charity stripe, but Michigan State made seven more shots from the field on 17 more attempts.

Table 1 below shows the updated Big Ten enhanced standings as of Saturday morning, March 1.

The Spartans and Wolverines are once again tied at the top of the Big Ten standing at 14-3 with a full two-game lead over third place Wisconsin and a three-game lead over the rest of the field.

With just three games remaining, the Badgers are the only team which could theoretically pass either Michigan or Michigan State. The Wolverines and Spartans play each other to close out the regular season, so one of the two schools is guaranteed no more than five losses. This means that Wisconsin cannot win a solo title and at least one team from the Great Lakes State is going to hang a banner.

Table 2 below shows the updated Big Ten win matrix.