MSU nearly clinched a share of the Big Ten Championship - for the second time - when Purdue threatened to beat Illinois Wednesday night.
But the Fighting Illini prevailed in overtime, and the Spartans missed out on their fifth Big Ten Championship in the last seven seasons.
Not that they cared.
"Conference championship, backing in? If Illinois can win out, they flat-out deserve it," MSU head coach Tom Izzo said after his team lost to Wisconsin in overtime on Tuesday. "I am not going to be losing any sleep tonight or tomorrow hoping that they lose so we can back our way in. If that happens, so be it."
The opportunity for MSU to grab the Big Ten Championship on its own vanished with the Wisconsin loss, but a conference championship still is possible, depending on how Illinois and Wisconsin finish their respective seasons.
The Spartans (17-10 overall, 12-4 Big Ten) would need Illinois (21-5, 12-3) to lose Sunday at Ohio State for a share of the conference championship. That scenario was of little comfort to freshman guard Shannon Brown after MSU lost to Wisconsin and missed the chance to end the regular season with a championship celebration.
Brown said even if Illinois loses, the Spartans won't be true champions.
"We wanted to win it fair and square," he said. "Now we got to wait for somebody else to lose. We'll still be Big Ten champs, I guess."
Illinois clinched a share of the title when it beat Purdue.
By beating MSU, Wisconsin (20-6, 11-4) still has a chance for its third-straight Big Ten Championship. The Badgers, like MSU, will have to count on an Illini loss for a piece of the Big Ten title. But unlike MSU, Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan was excited about the Badgers' championship prospects.
"We always ask for help. Would that take away from anything? Absolutely not," he said. "How could anything ever diminish if you get a piece of this thing? The Big Ten - it's cherished."
Wisconsin's first of its two straight Big Ten Championships, claimed in 2002, was made possible with a little help from other teams. With one Big Ten game left in that season, the Badgers needed two teams to lose for a share of the title. Both Ohio State and Indiana lost one of their last two games, and Wisconsin joined them, along with Illinois, for a four-way tie for the Big Ten Championship.
Such a complicated mess is exactly what MSU could have avoided Tuesday night with a win. Had the Spartans won, only Illinois would have been able to share the championship with them. Instead, MSU has to hope for one of a variety of scenarios for a title.
If both Illinois and Wisconsin lose this weekend, MSU and Illinois will be co-champions. If Illinois loses and Wisconsin wins, all three teams will share the title. If Illinois wins, it gets the Big Ten Championship all to itself.
Junior guard Kelvin Torbert said he wasn't going to worry about what the other teams do over the weekend.
"You don't ever want to win a championship by sitting back, hoping on somebody else's fate - especially when you had a chance for yourself to go out and win one," he said.
If Illinois does lose Sunday, giving MSU a share of the title, it would be returning a favor. In 1998, when Illinois and MSU split the Big Ten Championship, the Spartans lost their regular-season finale to Purdue in overtime, which gave the Fighting Illini their first Big Ten Championship since 1984.
Senior center Jason Andreas, who played his last game at Breslin Center in Tuesday's loss to Wisconsin, said he was disappointed MSU didn't claim the title with a win against Wisconsin, but at this point in his career, he'll be happy to win a share of it.
"We put ourselves in the position to win one with destiny in our own hands, with fate in our own hands and we weren't able to do it, and that's why it's so disappointing," he said. "It's hard right now to even think about winning the Big Ten Championship or thinking about Illinois.
"We have a lot of basketball ahead of us. We've been playing well lately. We need to remember that we've been playing well lately and go ahead and try to make a run in this Big Ten Tournament."
