March Madness 2018: Michigan, Michigan State both get three seeds
By Zac Snyder
The Michigan and Michigan State basketball teams both earned three seeds from the NCAA tournament selection committee but the Spartans get one advantage.
A first glance at the 2018 NCAA Tournament bracket shows the Michigan Wolverines and Michigan State Spartans on even footing. In purely a seeding sense, that’s true as both were seeded third in their respective regions by the selection committee.
But when one of the sites of the first and second rounds is in Detroit, not everything is necessarily equal. Michigan may have been playing the better ball by the end of the season but the committee clearly preferred Michigan State’s overall resume as they sent the Spartans to start their tournament run in Detroit. The Wolverines are headed for Wichita.
Tom Izzo and the Spartans should be breathing a sigh of relief because of the way the committee dispersed teams to first and second round sites. Xavier, a one seed, is technically closer to Detroit than to any other opening weekend site but the committee clearly had some freedom to consider the distance to Nashville a wash, sending the Musketeers south from Cincinnati instead of north.
If they were to go strictly by distance, it would have been Xavier and Purdue, a two seed, who got to open up at Little Caesars Arena. Instead, the Spartans face a short trip and a friendly crowd as they look to make good on this season’s expectations. First up for Michigan State will be 14th-seeded Bucknell, champions of the Patriot League, in a 7:10 p.m. ET start on Friday, March 16.
For Michigan, this team has already exceeded expectations and shouldn’t feel sour about having to travel to Wichita as a three seed instead of staying close to home at LCA. A successful defense of their Big Ten Tournament championship and a three-seed were probably only part of the Wolverines’ wildest dreams after losing so much from last year’s squad.
But as they did a year ago, John Beilein’s team once again started playing their best ball as the calendar started to turn from February to March. Last year’s Wolverines faced a tougher route as they advanced to the Sweet 16 as just a seven seed. The Sweet 16 will be the expectation this time around as they will be favored over 14th seed Montana in the first round and favored over either Houston or San Diego State in a potential second round game.
Next: Play a new kind of bracket challenge this year
Michigan will begin what they hope will be a long tournament run in the late timeslot on Thursday, March 15. Tipoff is set for approximately 9:50 p.m. ET.