Tonight, Michigan State is a six-point underdog against the #1 overall seed in the tournament, Auburn, though, pretty clearly, Duke is the best team in the tournament, at this point.

Michigan gave the game away against Auburn Friday night in almost stunning fashion. Up seven, with 12:45 left to go in the second half, Michigan looked to be cruising.

So what happened?

At that point, Michigan coach Dusty May -- looking at the score and seeing his bigs sucking air a bit -- catastrophically decided to rotate his bigs, taking Wolf out first.

Tschetter hit two of three free throws in a 'fools gold' moment that convinced May that his team could survive with only one of the bigs on the court. Auburn strolled into an easy 3pt shot from Pettiford with Goldin in drop-coverage, Tschetter turned the ball over by taking his eyes off a pass to him on the wing, and, after Wolf replaced Goldin during the TV timeout, Jones hit a 3pt shot, Wolf missed a layup, and Broome hit a shot to bring the Auburn deficit to one point.

If May had just kept both bigs in the game, slowed the game down, and slowly pounded the paint on three straight possessions of 4-5 pick-and-roll on the open side, Michigan would have survived that stretch, and probably emerged from the under-8 timeout up about eight points, and probably go on to win the game.

Instead, taking his bigs off the court opened everything up for Pettiford, Jones, and Broome, and the rest is history and regrets for Michigan.

There is absolutely a win-condition (just as there was for Michigan) and, in fact, the Spartans look to match-up far better with Auburn than Michigan did in a number of crucial ways. Here are four things to watch which could pave a path to a Spartan victory:

While the Spartan bigs have played nothing short of terribly overall in the tournament thus far, they also got the night off against Mississippi, with Zapala not playing a single minute, Kohler only playing 18 minutes, and Cooper playing a mere 21 minutes.

Furthermore, the Michigan State bigs are going to have three jobs, and only three jobs:

(1) Defend Broome with toughness, forcing him off of his spots, and into tougher shots away from the basket

(2) Defend the pick-and-roll effectively against Pettiford, and

(3) Box-out and rebound like their lives depend on it, on both ends of the court.

The Spartans will be playing with two bigs for much of the night because Pearl will like the idea of playing Broome and Cardwell against MSU's bigs, so the very fresh Spartan bigs will have to play their tails off.

It will be crucial to play Zapala only when Pettiford is off the court. When he is playing, Zapala should be second choice to both Kohler and Cooper. However, when Pettiford is off the court, matching Zapala onto Broome will be important as he can really bang with him, and he can contest Broome's length (7'4" wingspan) better than Cooper or Kohler.

Zapala can also scrap on the offensive glass and force Cardwell and Broome into worrying about him so that Kohler, Cooper, and the Spartan wings can also attack the glass.

The Spartan guards and wings are simply far better defenders than Michigan's. While the Wolverine guards and wings defended pretty well in the first half vs Auburn, they grew tired in the second, lost focus multiple times, and simply weren't tough enough fighting through screens when Pettiford and Jones were heating up in the final 12 minutes.

The Spartans -- Fears, Richardson, Akins, and Holloman -- are a different breed.

Expect Pettiford and Jones to still find some success -- Pettiford, particularly, has NBA wiggle and quickness, and is playing with supreme confidence -- but also expect the Spartans smalls to really wear down Auburn's guards by the end of the game, rather than wearing down themselves.