On paper, Izzo said he thinks the Bison (25-9) could pose a bigger threat to his third-seeded Spartans (29-4). 

“I look at them, they're as good or better than Middle Tennessee, but similar except they're bigger,” Izzo said Tuesday. “Their bigger guys can shoot it.”

Of all the 14-seeds  —  Wright State, Montana and Stephen F. Austin — Izzo said he thinks Bucknell is the best. The Bison, who went 16-2 in the Patriot league and won the conference tournament, lost a 93-81 decision to North Carolina on Nov. 15. Bucknell also lost an 80-78 game to Maryland on Nov. 18 after losing a 50-35 halftime lead. 

Only six current MSU players were on the 2016 team that lost to Middle Tennessee State, so Izzo has to find other ways to get the Spartans ready.

“I can use Middle Tennessee because of the number of guys that can shoot the ball, but most of our players weren't here for that, so I don't use that,” he said. “I don't think that this team has the ego, although I didn't think the one two years ago did either, but I don't think this team has an ego issue where they're thinking they're better than everybody, so I haven't harped on that. It's been mentioned the first night. That's been mentioned about a lot of teams in a lot of the brackets.”

For those who have been around, however, it’s hard to forget about the upset that derailed a championship-caliber team.

“It happened two years ago and that’s something we keep in the back of our heads, especially for us guys who’ve been through it,” senior forward Gavin Schilling said after practice Tuesday. “We know this is a game we can’t really look past and we really have to come out and be ready.”

Limiting Bucknell offensively is going to be toughest challenge, sophomore guard Cassius Winston said. The Bison have averaged 81.1 points on 34.3 percent shooting from 3-point range. 

The Bison have three players scoring in double figures, led by senior Zach Thomas, a 6-foot-7 forward who averages 20.3 points and 9.2 rebounds. Senior center Nana Foulland averages 15.4 points and senior guard Stephen Brown averages 14.9 points and has made 60 3-pointers this season.

“They have a big man that can score inside and they have a lot of guys knocking down 3s from the outside,” Winston said. “So this is a good basketball team and we’re going to have to go out there and prepare and do our jobs and play our best.”

It took a whole team effort for the Spartans to beat senior-laden Purdue 68-65 on Feb. 10, and confidence can be all the difference in March. But the Spartans know they have to take it one game at a time. 

“We definitely have confidence, but we don’t want to be cocky about anything because we haven’t done anything yet,” sophomore wing Miles Bridges said. “We didn’t even win the Big Ten (Tournament). Michigan won that. So we just want to come in humble and driven.” 

Lineup changes: Izzo also said he’s considering moving Bridges to play the four and moving freshman Jaren Jackson Jr. to either the three or five positions, depending on the lineup Izzo wants to run in certain situations.

“I think our size and offensive rebounding would be one of our strengths against them,” Izzo said. “But, you know, we're not going to make wholesale changes, but we can make some of those adjustments.”

Bridges, who played at the four most of his freshman season, said he’s comfortable with that idea.

“The ball has to go through me if I’m playing at the four, so I don’t mind,” Bridges said.

Post up: Izzo said sophomore forward Nick Ward has had a great few days of practice since returning from the Big Ten Tournament. Izzo also said it’ll be key to establish Ward in the low post for the Spartans to make a run in March.

“We've got to establish him in that low post,” he said. “I think he got frustrated, I think we got a little frustrated when he was getting doubled. He may get doubled, now he's been better the last two weeks at dealing with it, but I think he's comfortable now. We've worked on it every single day, so when he gets doubled we can play out of it.”