MINNEAPOLIS — College basketball has never been better in our state. All Michigan and Michigan State did this season was save our winter.

Each program has been to a Final Four in the past 12 months, giving the schools a combined six Final Four appearances in the past 11 years.

Regionally, U-M and MSU have a stranglehold on the Big Ten tournament, winning four straight, and six of eight. This past year, both schools spent significant time ranked in the top 10.

The programs are led by two of the best coaches in the game, who consistently turn modestly recruited players into all-conference performers, all-Americans, and NBA prospects.

Don’t expect the golden years to stop anytime soon. Not with John Beilein and Tom Izzo around.

Both schools will be good enough to make a run next season, as long as a few essential players return.

[ Big Ten newsletter: Tom Izzo's last championship is 19 years old. Ouch ]

No wonder there weren’t many tears in the Spartans’ locker room late Saturday night at U.S. Bank Stadium, after MSU lost in the Final Four semis to Texas Tech.

Instead, there were smiles. And optimism. And gratitude.

MSU’s players understood – even in the raw moments after a season-ending loss – what they had accomplished, and spoke about the possibilities of next season. That isn’t routine; sometimes it takes weeks, even months, for players to sit back and reflect.

Yet here were Cassius Winston and Aaron Henry and Xavier Tillman doing exactly that.

“We are going to be nasty next year,” said Tillman, an easy grin on his face.

He wasn’t bragging. Or trying to sound cocky. Or looking to make a statement.

Tillman is as cerebral a player as Izzo has coached. The junior forward sees things. He’s a father, and soon to be a husband. And he knows another summer in the gym for he and his returning teammates could transform the team into something more than the squad that beat Duke to get to a Final Four.

He knows what’s coming in next season, too.

Assuming Josh Langford can return to the pre-injury form he showed in November and December, the Spartans will have at least three players who can get a bucket at the end of the shot clock: Langford, Henry and incoming freshman Rocket Watts.

MSU will have size and depth and a senior backcourt. It will have an improved Tillman, an improved Henry, and the just-named Big Ten player of the year who plans on changing his body this summer.

Winston knows he wore down late this season and especially late in Saturday’s loss. The Red Raiders’ guards and wings were physical and relentless and, in the end, overwhelmed him.

Izzo thinks Winston can get to another level with a summer in the gym. Winston doesn’t disagree.

[ Cassius Winston carried MSU this season. But he's no Magic, Mateen — yet ]

With all the returning and incoming talent, the junior point guard will have more decisions to make on the floor next winter as a senior, and will have to juggle a deeper, more talented team than he did this season.

Speaking of juggling, Michigan's Jordan Poole will have to find the sweet spot between his obvious, individual scoring talent and the needs of Beilein’s fluid – and demanding – system.

If the sophomore shooting guard returns, and he should, he has the talent to blossom into an all-conference force and the centerpiece of Beilein’s offense in his third season.

Unless Ignas Brazdeikis returns, too, in which case Poole and the dynamic freshman forward could form as formidable a 1-2 scoring punch as there is in the Big Ten.

These are big ifs, certainly. But even if Brazdeikis leaves for the NBA, Beilein will have plenty of talent to compete for a conference title and a place among the elite in college basketball.

Zavier Simpson is the Big Ten’s best leader. Isaiah Livers could battle for the league’s most improved wing. Jon Teske is the conference’s best rim protector. Colin Castleton is just about 7 feet, can shoot, and plays with an edge.

David DeJulius and Brandon Johns have skill, and now a summer to refine it after a year learning Beilien’s system and, more critically, his expectation.

In other words, there are pieces. Players that we don’t see coming or players we thought were coming but just needed a little more seasoning.

[ Michigan basketball must evolve for next season ]

At this point, it’s foolish to doubt Beilein will roll out a team capable of another stirring winter – and March.

MSU could begin next season ranked in the top 5. U-M in the top 20 … or much higher, depending on who returns.

Texas Tech may have ended the dreams of the Wolverines and the Spartans this season, but no tournament loss will end where each program resides, which is near the top floor of college basketball.

There has never been a better time to be a college basketball fan in our state.

The past 12 months have proved it.

Read more:

Michigan basketball's foundation strong enough for whatever's next

Windsor: MSU's Final Four run was special. Why this is just the beginning

Albom: Tom Izzo, Michigan State need to change the script