In the women’s tournament, there are 33 at-large bids up for grabs — in addition to the 31 automatic bids for conference tournament champions and the Ivy League regular-season champion — for a total of 64 teams. Selections are to be announced on Selection Monday, which falls on March 12 — a day after the men’s tournament is announced.

“I think we left it up to chance right now,” Johnson said. “It’s not secure that we’re in there. But I mean we got the solid wins, but maybe it’s not enough. Our goal was to win (the Big Ten Tournament) and you know, get a solidified bid but we left it up to chance.”

Many of the automatic bids will be decided by Sunday, with the Big Ten’s contenders between the four teams left in the Big Ten Tournament: Penn State, Purdue, Ohio State and Nebraska.

Before Friday’s loss, the Spartans won eight-of-nine, including five games consecutively. The Spartans have several notable wins on their schedule, including a season sweep of both Penn State and Michigan, an earlier season win against Purdue and another against Nebraska.

As of Sunday, the Spartans currently rank 19th in the country in ESPN’s Rating Percentage Index, or RPI, which is used to determine the selection of at-large teams and respective seeding for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Of the Big Ten teams, MSU’s 19 RPI rating puts them just behind Purdue (fifth) and Ohio State (sixth).

Despite beating the Spartans in the quarterfinal round of the Big Ten Tournament, Purdue head coach Sharon Versyp said she believes MSU has the résumé to be one of the conference record seven teams from the Big Ten that she expects will get in the NCAA Tournament.

“I think this conference is one of the best in the country now,” Versyp said. “And I believe seven should get in. And that would be the first time, I think, ever. So Michigan totally deserves it. Iowa, Michigan State, definitely with their RPIs and the strength of schedule. We should get seven in.”

And even with some doubt in the locker room about MSU’s chances to secure a bid, sophomore guard Klarissa Bell said her team has done enough throughout the season to be playing deep into March.

“I heard today one of the commentators for the Big Ten say that the NCAA selection crew or whatever is going to look how teams are doing in their last 12 games,” Bell said. “I think that we have stepped it up from the beginning of our season and I think that we improved, we beat some good teams and I think that we proved that we deserve a chance for an NCAA selection bid.”