However, after suffering a pair of blowout losses to Iowa and a trio of one-point defeats to Wisconsin, Nebraska and Purdue, the Spartans finished second in the final Big Ten standings, allowing the No. 10 Indiana Hoosiers (25-6, 15-3) to come away with the title.

MSU head basketball coach Tom Izzo said while he'll never diminish the meaning of a regular season title for the work it takes to win something that spans the course of two-plus months, the Big Ten Tournament is a second chance of sorts.

"You’d like to redeem yourself, get kind of a second chance," Izzo said. "This is an exciting chance for us, because I like a chance on a year when the league is really good to win the Big Ten Tournament. I’m sure Maryland wants to redeem itself. Iowa, who started out better than anybody, wants to do theirs, Indiana wants to finish the job, Purdue has its own battle cries. We’ve all got them, but I think there’s a little more motivation when you haven’t won the regular season."

The Spartans will begin play Friday night at 6:30 p.m. from Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis against the winner of a Thursday night contest between No. 7 seed Ohio State (19-12, 11-7) and No. 10 seed Penn State (16-15, 7-11).

MSU last won the Big Ten Tournament in 2014, and that's the experience MSU senior forward Matt Costello said the team is drawing on, as that was another year they felt the Big Ten regular season championship slip away and used the tournament as a motivational factor to redeem themselves.

"The 2014 year, that's what it was," Costello said. "We got hurt all throughout the season, wasn't able to win the Big Ten championship so we made that our goal, to win the Big Ten Tournament."

MSU will head into this tournament as hot as any team in the country. In addition to leading the nation in several statistical categories, the Spartans have also won 10 of their last 11 games. Despite this, and despite the hype surrounding his team, Izzo still has a huge edge to him.

"Do I think we’re good enough to be one of the teams considered (for a title)?" Izzo said. "One hundred percent. Do I feel comfortable? Zero percent. I just don’t. I don’t like the fact that, down the stretch here, we haven’t stuck to our attention to detail ... because we’ve got to improve in those areas if we’re gonna be a real contender. Because one and done time is a little different than the rest of the year.”

In the end, while the Spartans know they let the Big Ten regular season title slip away, they're not dwelling on the past, and have refocused their goals on the rest of the season.

"We didn't win (the regular season title) but we can't really look back," junior guard Eron Harris said. "We wanted to win it but we still have another chance to be Big Ten champions and we want to do it for our seniors and we want to do it for everybody that's been a part of the team this year."