The Big Ten Upset of the Year: Northwestern rocks Michigan State

Villanova-Georgetown and N.C. State-Houston; slide over one spot. You need to make room for the huge upset that just became a part of college basketball history.
 
Naturally, Wednesday night's massive shocker in the Breslin Center will never be as significant as the two upsets that crowned Cinderella champions in the 1980s. Regular-season upsets rightfully receive a smaller amount of historical acknowledgment in comparison with the Final Four's supreme stunners.
 
With that having been said, Northwestern's 70-63 win over Michigan State, which snapped the Spartans' 28-game home winning streak, deserves a place--on the raw merits--as one of the great upsets this sport has ever seen. Virginia Tech beating a dynamic but still young Wake Forest squad is one thing. A Boston College team with a number of NCAA Tournament veterans beating North Carolina is notable, but not quite an earthquake.

But Northwestern--bottom-feeding, stuck-in-the-shadows, up-against-the-odds, academically-strong-but-athletically-weak Northwestern--going into East Lansing and knocking off a veteran Tom Izzo-coached club that entered the game 5-0 in the Big Ten?
 
That's insane. On an all-time level, the Big Ten's most downtrodden program beating the league's most recent superpower on the road?
 
It defies all explanation. Northwestern has never made the NCAA Tournament. Not even once. The Spartans--given a rich basketball tradition by Jud Heathcote and turned into a juggernaut by Izzo, a Heathcote protégé--always make the NCAA’s, usually reach the Sweet 16, and occasionally complete the journey to the Final Four. Michigan State is the program that has established the gold standard for excellence in the Big Ten, assuming a rightful place alongside the league's other great schools from past decades.
 
The 1960s belonged primarily to Ohio State. The 1970s and '80s were dominated by Bob Knight and Indiana. The 1990s witnessed the rise of Michigan. In the past decade, Wisconsin and Illinois have had their moments of magic, but no Big Ten basketball school has enjoyed more success than the Spartans. Three straight Final Fours (1999-2001) and the 2000 national title, along with another Final Four in 2005, have made MSU the king of the conference in the Izzo era. If one team enjoys an intimidation factor at home, it's the Spartans, and if one Big Ten school figured to go winless at the Breslin Center for decades to come, it was Northwestern.
 
 

 
Yet, after a wacky Wednesday in a league that also saw Iowa--sans Cyrus Tate--bump off Wisconsin in overtime, it's becoming increasingly clear that this year's Big Ten is deeper and more balanced than it's been in quite some time. The revenge of the underdogs on January 21 suggests that instead of having three woeful teams (Northwestern, Iowa and Indiana), the league only has Indiana to kick around at the moment.
 
How important is this outcome for both teams? What does it mean for the rest of the season? First, look at the fallout from a Michigan State perspective.
 
Losing road or neutral-court games doesn't hurt quite so much with the NCAA Tournament's selection committee, but when a team stubs its toe at home to a lesser opponent, the power ratings and seeding lines move in unfavorable directions. Stated in a simpler way, it can already be said--with a month and a half remaining in the regular season--that this home loss to Northwestern will prevent the Spartans from getting a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance. Accordingly, it means that MSU is more likely to get shipped to a geographic region outside the Midwest. That's the price Izzo's team will have to pay for this poor performance.
 
On the other hand, a win of this caliber means that the Wildcats--now a respectable 2-4 in the conference--will have a legitimate claim for an NIT bid if they can finish the year with a winning record and (just to make sure) win their first-round Big Ten Tournament contest. For a team that's never been able to reach America's favorite basketball tournament, Northwestern will be happy to play in the second-biggest postseason event on the college hoops calendar.
 
It's amazing what one game can do to change perceptions, emotions, and the landscape of a season. The coming weeks will tell us if Northwestern and Michigan State can respond properly to tonight's titanic surprise, the biggest Big Ten upset in quite some time.

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