Tag Archives: Big 10 sports

A Bad Michigan State Game, A Great MSU Season: A Proud Spartan Says Thanks

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And then that happened. The score of Michigan State University’s game in Thursday’s NCAA “Sweet Sixteen” (regional semifinal) basketball contest speaks for itself: Louisville 57, MSU 44.

The statistics also speak for themselves. The Spartans shot just 29 percent from the field, a figure that made Louisville’s own subpar 38 percent shooting look mighty by comparison. MSU, one of the best rebounding teams in the nation this year, was beaten off the boards by 34-32. And Michigan State had 15 turnovers — several of which were converted into easy baskets by Louisville — to their opponents’ nine. Draymond Green, the senior forward, team captain and inspirational leader, had 13 points and 16 rebounds, yet no one could say it was even close to his best performance in green and white.

So we Spartisans could have ourselves a big old pity party, bemoaning how a team that overcame low pre-season expectations to win the Big 10 championship and earned a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament could end the year on such a sour note.

But we won’t.

Because when you strip away the hopes and expectations that the team had built with its amazing run, it is easy to grab onto the perspective that this, from Day 1, has been a Cinderella season for Michigan State and its fans.

The Spartans entered their 2011-12 campaign coming off one of the most difficult seasons of head coach Tom Izzo’s tenure, which has now produced one national championship, five other visits to the Final Four, 15 consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament and games in the Sweet Sixteen in 10 of those 15 years, including this one.

Last year’s Michigan State team, which arguably had more individual talent than this year’s, nonetheless went just 19-15, finished 9-9 for a tie for fourth in the Big 10, got knocked out of the Big 10 tournament by upstart Penn State, and was one-game-and-out in the NCAA tourney with a first-round loss to mediocre UCLA. That downturn was largely attributed to poor team chemistry among the players.

From that team, MSU lost star starters Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers to graduation, sixth man Korie Lucious to a transfer that resulted from discipline problems, and senior Delvon Roe, who simply could no longer play on his injury-damaged knees. The Spartans entered this season with Green as the only player with substantial Michigan State experience in the starting lineup.

MSU started their schedule unranked in the national Top 25, and would remain so until the sixth week. Izzo, who throughout his career has tested his players with a difficult out-of-conference schedule, topped himself by committing his team to an opening game against top-ranked North Carolina — played on the deck of an aircraft carrier docked in San Diego — and then a game against highly ranked Duke across the country at New York’s Madison Square Garden just four days later. The Spartans lost both to start out the season 0-2.

But then things gelled. Green’s court talent and fired-up leadership; the emergence of junior Derrick Nix and sophomore Adriean Payne as a strong platoon at center; the rapid improvement of forward Brenden Dawson, a touted freshman recruit and full-year starter until a knee injury in the Spartans’ last regular season game knocked him out of post-season play; solid backcourt play from sophomore point guard Kevin Appling, with contributions from senior transfer Brandon Wood and freshman Travis Trice; and the steady play of senior swing man Austin Thornton, a former walk-on.

All this added up to a 15-game winning streak after those initial two losses, and ultimately a tie with overwhelming pre-season conference favorite Ohio State and Michigan for the regular season Big 10 title, a run through Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio State for the Big 10 tournament championship, and two wins in the NCAAs before they finally hit a wall that they couldn’t run through.

So we will smile with pride when we walk into the Breslin Center arena and see that Big 10 championship banner and the inevitable retired jersey number 23 worn by Draymond Green. We thank Green, Thornton, Wood and departing senior reserve Anthony Ianni for their contributions. We thank the players who will be returning next year with their desire to succeed tempered more strongly by Thursday’s disappointment.

But there is a greater truth that I should make clear, because I spend so much time on my blog writing about the games that Michigan State athletes play.

I do not love Michigan State University because I love Michigan State sports.

I love Michigan State sports because I love Michigan State University.

I have been attached to MSU for more than 38 years, when I enrolled there in my first time living away from my home in New York. I wasn’t there a week when I was hired to work on the campus radio station and spent four years pursuing my goal of becoming a sportscaster. I have watched with pride as the good public university that I attended became an excellent public university, a place where scientists cure cancer and split atoms, where business executives are taught and leaders in dozens of different fields are shaped. I made friendships that have withstood the passage of almost four decades, am deeply engrossed in alumni affairs as a member of the Chicago Spartans board, and when I walk on campus Friday next week to attend a luncheon honoring scholarship recipients, I will feel as at home as my 17-year-old self did in 1973.

It is also the place where I learned to try and if it didn’t work out, to try and try and try again. That’s why so many of us have taken so strongly to the school’s current marketing slogan: Spartans Will. Because even if we did not this time, we will.

We’ll Take Our Chances With Izzoball, Thank You

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The Tuesday edition of the New York Times included a column by writer Pete Thamel that came to the not-illogical conclusion that University of Kentucky rates the favorite of 16 teams remaining in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. After all, Kentucky, a team stacked with players considered to be strong NBA pro prospects, has lost only two of its 36 games this season and was dominant in its two tournament games so far.

But the column contained one line that stopped me in my tracks. Citing the fact that freshman — first-year — players Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist are predicted to go number 1 and number 2 in the upcoming NBA draft, and that as many as three other Kentucky underclassmen may also go high, Thamel said, “Years from now people will look back in wonderment that a single college team included such talent.”

Wonderment? The only thing I’m wondering is what planet you have to be on to know exactly why Kentucky is getting all that professional caliber talent. And it has nothing to with breaking any rules. What Kentucky has accomplished — unfortunately, from my perspective — is not only totally within the rules, but is encouraged by them.

The rule that has contributed most to giving Kentucky’s program its reputation as “One and Done U.” — a place where top talents congregate because they don’t expect to stay in college for long enough for their cup of coffee to get cold — is an age limit instituted six years ago by the NBA. The rule prevents players from going directly from high school to the pros by requiring that they be at least 19 years ago and at least one year out of high school.

The rule works for the NBA teams because it enables them to use the college game as a proving ground to show that talented, ticketed-for-stardom kids are really going to live up to the hype. Although some of the greatest players in NBA history, such as Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett, went pro straight from high school, there were more than a few cases in which teams got burned by expending high draft picks and a lot of money on players who turned out to be unready for the pros.

The rule works for the NCAA, the broadcast networks that carry games and anyone else who has a serious financial interest in the huge industry that college ball has become. These highly rated kids may have no intention of staying more than a year or two, but that is a year or two in which the college basketball establishment can make a buck off their talents.

But the rule also requires young men — some of whom would willingly gamble on their belief that they are talented enough to make millions immediately in the NBA — to go through what is essentially a charade that they are enrolling in a college with the intention of staying long enough to get a diploma, or even establish a connection with the college community beyond whatever athletic glory they can deliver during their short visit. It turns colleges into way stations, places where NBA-caliber talents have to incubate their careers for the one year necessary to meet the pro league’s requirement.

The reason that I was taken aback by the Times reporter’s wonderment is that no team  has been as aggressive or prolific as Kentucky at taking full advantage of this rule. Kentucky has pretty much hung out a banner welcoming one-and-done players since head coach John Calipari arrived in 2009 from a gig at University of Memphis (where he coached current Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose for his one great season in college).

In his first year, Calipari brought in a tremendous recruiting class. Even though his team got knocked out in the regional finals (known as the “Elite Eight”), five of his players — including all four star freshmen — left for the NBA. Last year’s team was powered to an appearance in the Final Four by guard Brandon Knight, who also went pro after one year.

It looks like Kentucky could again lose a whole starting team’s worth of underclassmen to the NBA, but no worries… Kentucky’s incoming freshmen class is rated number 2 in the nation by ESPN.com, just behind Arizona, a school whose program is looking to rebound after a few off years.

And it may not even be done yet. Nerlens Noel, a 6-11 center who is regarded as the best high-school senior player in the country, has narrowed his college choices to Kentucky, Georgetown and Syracuse. And in a revealing comment to ESPN.com describing his recent official visit to campus, Noel said, “Kentucky, when I was there they showed me how good of a job they do with their players and that maybe in 1-2 years in college I could be a professional.”

This situation has created something of a ritual during NCAA tournament time. Calipari is questioned by the national media about whether his program is less college sports and more NBA Developmental League; Calipari responds that he dislikes the rule as much as anybody and rolls out a list of reforms the NCAA can institute to provide incentives for players to stay in school for longer than a year, including paying players a financial stipend.

Meanwhile, the broadcast announcers generally take a see-no-evil approach and focus on the players’ marvelous talent (“Look at Kentucky’s latest crop of diaper dandies, bay-bee!”).

Sports may be the only thing more rife with situational ethics than politics, so Kentucky fans defend their school’s perpetual motion recruiting machine with the same fervor that they’d be denouncing it if Calipari’s next career stop had been at, say, archrival Louisville rather than in Lexington.

And those of us who root for teams that follow the traditional model of trying to build championship teams with players nurtured over four years — like Michigan State under head coach Tom Izzo — hold onto hope that the senior leadership of a player such as Draymond Green can overcome the superior but less experienced talent of what appears the equivalent of an NBA all-rookie team.

We Spartans are very proud of the fact that Izzo’s teams have won a national championship and gone to five other Final Fours in his 17 years as head coach, and prouder still that the program’s academic progress and graduation rates have improved greatly during that time. Some of the greatest names in recent MSU basketball history — Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson, Drew Neitzel, Kalin Lucas, Durrell Summers and Draymond Green — were four-year players.

We wouldn’t want it any other way.

MSU Recruits Costello, Valentine Run 1-2 For Mr. Michigan Basketball

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The award given annually to the best high school boys’ basketball player in Michigan is known as “Mr. Michigan Basketball.” But maybe it’s time for them to rename it “Mr. Michigan State Basketball,” given Spartan head coach Tom Izzo’s knack for recruiting the state’s best of the best.

It would be satisfying enough for MSU fans to know that 6-10 center Matt Costello of Bay City, whose huge scoring and rebounding stats earned him the MVP trophy, will be wearing green and white in East Lansing next year. But the close runner-up is also a Michigan State recruit: guard Denzel Valentine, whose passing skills have reminded some observers of Magic Johnson. Valentine plays for a Lansing Sexton High School team — coached by his father, former MSU basketball team captain Carlton Valentine — that has just blown the doors off most of its opponents during his senior season.

MSU Big: Matt Costello, seen here with his new Mr. Michigan Basketball trophy, averaged 25 points and 18 rebounds per game in his senior year at Bay City Western (Photo credit: Robin Buckson / Detroit News)

And now here’s the kicker. Neither of these home-state stars is regarded by scouts as the premier player in Izzo’s 2012 recruiting class. That would be Gary Harris, rated the top player in Indiana and the top high-school senior shooting guard in the nation by some scouting services.

Kenny Kaminski, another highly rated power forward who missed his senior year of basketball because of a leg injury incurred playing football, rounds out a recruiting class that ESPN.com rates sixth among all colleges — behind only Arizona, Kentucky, Texas, Baylor and North Carolina, and three places ahead of Indiana, the next highest-rated Big 10 team.

Costello’s claim on the MVP trophy makes it the fourth consecutive year in which an MSU commit has been named Mr. Michigan Basketball (though last year’s winner, guard Dwaun Anderson, decided not to enroll citing his troubles adjusting to the death of his mother, and  is now attending Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y.). Center Derrick Nix and guard Keith Appling, teammates at Detroit Pershing High School who won the 2009 and 2010 Mr. Basketball awards respectively, are now mainstays of the current Spartan team that won the Big 10 championship and has made it to the Sweet Sixteen — the regional semifinals — in the ongoing NCAA post-season tournament.

It is the ninth time in the past 14 years that a player recruited by Izzo has been named Mr. Michigan Basketball (a number that includes Anderson). Of the others, only two were successfully recruited by MSU’s in-state archrival, University of Michigan.

Spartans are fortunate that Michigan State is one of just 16 schools whose fans have not already had to say, “Wait til next year.” So you can put all of this in the back of your mind for now. And — fingers tightly crossed — for two weeks, until after the championship final.

There is no doubt that the kids coming in have big shoes to fill, especially those of forward and team captain Draymond Green, whose efforts as both a player and a leader already have earned him Big 10 Player of the Year honors and have made him a solid candidate for national player of the year. And you never want to presume that even the best high school players will be able to replicate their numbers in the far-tougher arena of Big 10 basketball.

Still, if the Class of 2012 comes even close to the hype preceding it, the prospects for Izzo’s roll of success continuing well into the future look bright indeed.

Michigan State University Basketball: 1st Round Win, Baked In A Pie

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The 22-point victory margin (89-67) that Michigan State University ran up over Long Island University Brooklyn Friday night was about proportionate to expectations for their first game in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. After all, the Spartans — the #1 seed in the West region — came in as the champions of the Big 10, the conference that clearly was the toughest in the nation this season. The Blackbirds, seeded #16, had a nice season, though again much more modest competition in the Northeast Conference.

Team leader Draymond Green scoring two of his 24 points against LIU Brooklyn. Green's second NCAA tournament triple-double in points, rebounds and assists made him the first player in college basketball to pull off that feat since Spartan legend Magic Johnson 33 years ago. (Photo credit: Dale G. Young / Detroit News)

But anyone who follows Michigan State basketball even in the least knows that Tom Izzo — who is trying to take the program to its second national championship and seventh Final Four appearance in his 17 years as head coach — was on high alert for any signs of complacency going into Friday’s game. No number 1 seed has ever lost to a number 16 seed, but it could happen someday.

And as if to underscore the point, the Spartans took the court in Columbus, Ohio, with the knowledge that not one, but two number 2 seeded teams had lost to 15 seeds: Norfolk State defeated Missouri, who some pundits had viewed as a better choice than Michigan State to win the West region and go to the Final Four, and Lehigh beat mighty Duke, a team that just two years ago won the national championship.

So the Spartans came to play. So did LIU, and for a bit more than a half, it appeared that the game would be at least a bit of a struggle. A team that tries to make up for a height disadvantage with relentless hustle, the Blackbirds held MSU to a 42-37 halftime lead — largely because they hit five of eight three-point shot attempts to the Spartans’ zero for five.

But as happened so often during a season that has produced a record of 28 wins and just seven losses, Michigan State’s depth of talent, versatility, conditioning and experience in playing the nation’s toughest schedule this year kicked in. After yet another LIU three-pointer cut the lead to 44-40, MSU opened up breathing space with an 8-2 run. And then, with the lead standing at eight points and a bit more than 13 minutes left, the Spartans went on a 21-8 binge over five minutes that built the lead to more than 20 and effectively put the game on ice.

MSU ended up with a blowout margin even though they got a little foul-happy on defense — LIU outscored them 15-6 from the free-throw line — and they were outscored by 24-9 from three-point range. Otherwise, the game provided one of the Spartans’ stronger statistical performances this year. MSU scored on 59 percent of its field goal attempts (63 percent inside the three-point arc), and had a gaping 42-19 edge in rebounds (including 15 on the offensive boards).

MSU got huge contributions from their combo at center, Adreian Payne and Derrick Nix. If they needed any added incentive, it came in the form of an ill-advised comment in the run-up to the game by an LIU player who implied his team with overcome its size disadvantage with speed because Michigan State’s big men were too slow to keep up with them. The stats indicate otherwise: Nix had 18 points on eight for 13 field-goal shooting and had eight rebounds, while Payne had 16 points on eight for 11 shooting (including a couple of thunderous dunks) and added seven rebounds.

Yet the star of the game, again, was senior forward Draymond Green. Already the Big 10 Player of the Year, the MVP of the Big 10 Conference Tournament and a candidate for national player of the year, Green had a “triple double,” with 24 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, all game-leading numbers.

That made him the first player anywhere in college basketball to have two triple-doubles in NCAA tournament play since it was accomplished by another Michigan State legend, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, as he led the school to its first national championship in 1979. But the reaction of Green, the team’s captain, to this achievement is a measure of how much winning means to him, and how much his leadership has mattered as the MSU team bounced back from an unusually mediocre season last year.

The first triple-double, which came in last year’s first-round game against UCLA, didn’t matter, Green said. Because Michigan State lost that game, 79-77. Never mind that MSU came one basket shy of erasing an 18-point halftime deficit largely because Green scored 23, had 11 rebounds and dished out 10 assists.

The Spartans will make their bid for the Sweet 16 Sunday afternoon when they play St. Louis University in Columbus. The winner will take on Louisville next week for a chance to the move on to the “Elite Eight” regional finals.

Michigan State = Big 10 Champs: The Year Go Green Took On A Double Meaning

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There is hardly anything that Michigan State senior forward Draymond Green did not accomplish in leading the Spartans first to a share of the regular season Big 10 Championship, and then on a three-game run to the Big 10 tournament championship.

Green earned conference player of the year honors (and a nomination for national player of the year) by leading MSU in scoring (16.1 points per game) and rebounding (10.4). His court savvy was evident in his 3.6 assists per game, just a smidge behind team-leading point guard Keith Appling’s 3.9. He did this while playing a Michigan State team schedule widely acknowledged to be the toughest in the nation this year, and while providing dynamic leadership as team captain whether he was on or off the court.

The only thing missing from Green’s resume this year was a single, signature basket. A buzzer-beating shot. A game winner. Or the dagger that gave the Spartans the cushion to pull out a very close game.

But now he does. And his timing could not have been more exquisite, as the shot ensured that Michigan State would outlast Ohio State Sunday in their fiercely competitive showdown for the Big 10 Tournament championship.

Green’s three-point basket with 1:36 left extended the Spartans’ tenuous lead to 67-62. MSU, one of the nation’s best defensive teams, then held Ohio State to one basket in six attempts to preserve a 68-64 victory, earn yet another banner for the crowded rafters of Breslin Center, and achieve a #1 seed for the NCAA Tournament that designates them as one of the top four teams in the country so far this season.

All this for a team, coming off a disappointing season last year, that was so overlooked by the college basketball establishment that it took six weeks at the beginning of the season to even crack the Top 25 rankings. This achievement has already earned Big 10 coach of the year honors (and a strong candidacy to be national coach of the year) for Tom Izzo, who in 17 years as head Spartan has coached one team to a national championship and taken five others to the Final Four.

The fact that Green was willing to take that long-range shot with Ohio State player Deshaun Thomas’ hand in his face showed both confidence and courage. He had a frustrating game up to that point, hitting just three of 14 field goal attempts for nine points. And with about 14 minutes remaining in the second half, Spartan fans gasped at the sight of Green sitting dazed on the court after he was bowled over by Ohio State guard Aaron Craft and struck his head on the hardwood floor.

But the Michigan State players’ response to watching their captain wobble off the court for a few head-clearing minutes on the bench spoke volumes about how much the Spartans are in sync with Izzo’s team concept, and how much they’ve matured since the squad’s terrible 42-41 defeat at Illinois Jan. 31, a day in which Green first was sick with a bug, then missed much of the game in foul trouble, and then endured a painful (though fortunately short-lasting) knee sprain near the end of the game.

Draymond Green's game-clinching three-pointer over tight defense by Ohio State's Deshaun Thomas is the latest iconic image for Spartan sports. (Credit: Dale G. Young / Detroit News)

Without the resilience they had built up over a season of challenges, the Spartans’ wheels could have fallen off. The play on which Green was hurt was a disaster: Not only did the refs miss an obvious offensive foul on Craft that sent Green flying, but Ohio State’s Thomas connected on a three-point shot (his only one in six tries during the game) that gave the Buckeyes their biggest lead in the game at 52-45.

Yet with their star and fire-up leader sitting on the bench seeing stars and tweeting birds circling his head, the Spartans did what championship teams do. They rose to the occasion with a 10-0 blitz over a little more than two minutes — which included two three-pointers by senior Brandon Wood, who led all scorers with 21 points — and before the Buckeyes knew what hit them, the Spartans held a 55-52 lead.

Although the outcome remained very much in doubt until the game’s final seconds, it was a lead the Spartans would hang on to for dear life over the final 12 minutes.

While Ohio State fell a bit short of pre-season predictions that they would be one of the top four teams in the nation, they weren’t far off. Sophomore forward Jared Sullinger — who again will face the choice of continuing as a college player or going pro this off-season — led OSU with 18 points and nine rebounds, even though he missed much of the first half with foul problems.

It took only a few minutes after the game ended for Spartan fans to get a double-barreled blast of good news, with the release of the NCAA Tournament brackets showing that MSU is number 1 in the West regional., setting up a first-round game Friday night with the Long Island University-Brooklyn Blackbirds.

The Big 10, widely considered the nation’s toughest conference this year, is well-represented overall in the NCAAs, with a total of six of its 12 making the tournament. Along with MSU, Ohio State is the number 2 seed and Wisconsin is number 4 in the East regional, Michigan is number 4 and Purdue 10 in the Midwest, and Indiana is number 4 in the South.

That means the conference has at least one team in each region — which also means there is the possibility of an all-Big 10 final. That would be a wonderful thing.

As long as one of the teams is Michigan State.

 

 

Big 10 Tournament: Spartans Prepare For Glory, Michigan Run Over By Karma

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There surely are no guarantees for Michigan State Spartisans in today’s Big 10 Tournament men’s basketball final against Ohio State. The Buckeyes are a very talented team, the overwhelming pre-season favorite to win the conference championship and briefly the #1 team in the nation before a mid-season slump knocked them into a regular season tie for first with MSU and Michigan.

OSU’s gritty 72-70 win in East Lansing last Sunday forced that three-way tie, and they looked inspired in their first two tournament games. They surged late against Purdue to break open a close game Friday. And what was left on the court after Saturday’s end-to-end 77-55 demolition of Michigan were not Wolverines, but smithereens.

(Since I’m sure anyone who cares enough to read this post undoubtedly saw or read about the details of the games, I won’t repeat. Nor will I engage in too much blatant schadenfreude over the fact that the team that skunked Michigan yesterday was the same one — their blood rivals in college sports — that their fans rooted for to beat Michigan State just six days earlier so Michigan could claim whatever validation came from backing in to a one-third share of the regular season title. I know the saying that you keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but it’s a pretty bad idea in sports  to empower your worst enemy when you may have to play them in a few days. That wasn’t gratitude that Ohio State showed Michigan yesterday.)

Yet the Spartans  have an opportunity to stake a clear claim on being the best team in what is widely regarded as the nation’s strongest men’s basketball conference this season, after shaking off a slow start Saturday and racing past Wisconsin, 65-52, in a game they led by as many as 19 points. It was MSU’s third win in three games this year over Wisconsin, the 12th-ranked team nationally, which otherwise this year was 24-6 overall and 12-3 in the Big 10.

It would be hard to find two teams more evenly matched based on the season record so far than the tournament finalists. Michigan State, which has the number 1 strength of schedule among all college teams, has 26 wins and 7 losses; Ohio State, with the number 11 strength of schedule, is 27-6. Both teams are 15-5 in Big 10 play (including their two tournament wins apiece), and each won a game this season in the other’s house, with MSU winning 58-48 in Columbus on Feb. 11 and OSU turning the tables last Sunday.

Regardless of the outcome of today’s game, the very fact that Michigan State is playing in the Big 10 Tournament finals at all — with a #2 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament seemingly assured and a #1 seed a realistic possibility of they do win today — certifies the Big 10 Coach of the Year honor already bestowed on MSU head coach Tom Izzo, and (in my obviously non-unbiased view) should make him the front-runner for national coach of the year.

MSU fans had reason to be nervous going into the tournament. After clinching a share of the regular season Big 10 title with two games to go, the Spartans suffered a 15-point loss at Indiana (their biggest deficit this season) and, after running up a big early lead against Ohio State last Sunday, appeared deflated after star freshman forward Branden Dawson went down with what turned out to be a season-ending knee injury and ended up losing on a shot with 1 second remaining.

But a breezy 92-75 quarterfinal rout over Iowa in the tournament quarterfinal round was followed by yesterday’s ultimately comfortable win over Wisconsin, victories that showed both the depth of Izzo’s recruiting and team-oriented coaching, and his genius at getting most of his teams to adjust to adversity (as we saw in 2010 when Lucas, the team’s best player, went down in a second-round NCAA game with a torn Achilles tendon, but the Spartans made it to the Final Four anyway).

Every other team being considered for a number 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA tournament — Syracuse, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Ohio State — was expected to be there, ranked high in the national polls at the start of the season. Michigan State was unranked and, after testing themselves and losing to North Carolina and Duke to start the season, did not even crack the Top 25 until Week 6.

At the very least, Michigan State would easily win the comeback team of the year if there were such a prize.

The 2010-11 season was the most difficult for Izzo in a 17-year tenure as head coach that has seen the Spartans win one national championship and go to five other Final Fours. A combination of injuries, discipline problems and clashing personalities dropped the team to 19-15 overall, 9-9 for a fourth-place tie in the Big 10 regular season, a semifinal loss to underdog Penn State in the Big 10 tournament, and a one-and-done loss to a meh UCLA team in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

On paper, it did appear to look like a mess for this season. Star seniors Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers cycled out. Guards Chris Allen and Korie Lucious, who were programmed to be major contributors by last season, had falling-outs and transferred to Iowa State. And not long before this season started, forward Delvon Roe, a coveted recruit out of high school, determined that three years was enough for his injury-ruined knees.

Yet these seeming problems produced the one biggest factor in Michigan State’s amazing turnaround: They allowed senior forward Draymond Green, one of the most inspirational players ever to wear a Spartan uniform, to gain clear command as the team’s floor and bench leader. All that produced was a Big 10 Player of the Year honor for Green, who also is a candidate for national player of the year. And he rallied a team made up heavily of sophomores and freshmen to play like Izzo’s more typically senior-oriented squads.

Here’s hoping the Spartans can crown these achievements with one more Big 10 win this afternoon.

 

Big 10 Tournament, Day 2: A Spartan Rebound, Another Michigan Houdini

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Unlike last year — when underdog Penn State got all the way to the final game before losing to Ohio State — there is no Cinderella team in the Big 10 Conference tournament this year. The top four teams during the regular season will face off in today’s semifinal matches: #4 Wisconsin plays #1 Michigan State, while #2 Ohio State plays #3 Michigan.

Michigan State — which finished tied for first with Ohio State and Michigan in the regular season — had the easiest time in its quarterfinal game Friday, defeating Iowa, 92-75, in a game in which the Spartans took firm control midway through the first half and eventually led by as much as 28 before pulling most of their starters to rest them for the next game. It was a sigh of relief for Spartan fans, whose team lost to Indiana by 15 on the road and to Ohio State by two at home to end the regular season, and lost rising freshman star Brenden Dawson to a torn knee ligament in the game against the Buckeyes.

Ohio State’s equally big victory margin over Purdue, 88-71, is a little deceptive. Purdue hung in for most of the game and trailed by just 65-61 with a bit less than six and a half minutes left. But the more talent-heavy Buckeyes went on a 14-0 run over the next three minutes that put the game firmly out of reach.

Wisconsin fended off fifth-seeded Indiana, 78-71, in the most evenly matched game based on regular season records. Indiana — without the services of key sixth man Verdell Jones III, a senior who went down with a knee injury early in the Hoosiers’ first-round game with Penn State — kept it close, trailing by just three points with two minutes left,  but the Badgers sealed the deal by hitting their last seven free throws down the stretch.

And Michigan, with its 73-69 overtime win over #10-seeded would-be Cinderella Minnesota, again showed its incredible knack for pulling games out of its butt. And I say that in the most complimentary fashion. Michigan, now 25-8 on the season and 14-5 in the Big 10, has won three overtime games (including both of its contests against Northwestern), beat Michigan State by one point on its own home court in Ann Arbor, won by two points at Purdue, and eked out a six-point win in its season finale at Penn State, which this year tied with Nebraska for last place.

Minnesota pulled out to a nine-point lead with four and a half minutes left in regulation, but Michigan came back to tie with rally that consisted entirely of three three-point shots, which resulted from ginormous defensive lapses that left the Wolverine players wide open. Even better, the guys who hit those crucial shots, senior Zack Novak (who had the first two) and sophomore forward Evan Smotrycz, who tied the game with 19 seconds left in regulation, failed to hit a field goal for the entire rest of the 45-minute game.

Winning ugly is still winning, after all. Just ask any Michigan fan who rooted for despised arch-rival Ohio State to beat Michigan State last Sunday so the Wolverines could claim a one-third share of the regular season Big 10 championship. Problem with Buckeye Fever is that while it is a short-term affliction, it is highly contagious. And for this one day only, I’ve got it bad.

Friday’s games largely turned on big-time performances by team stars. Michigan State senior forward Draymond Green, the Big 10 player of the year, had 21 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and three blocks — while playing only 24 of 40 minutes. Michigan guards Trey Burke (the Big 10 freshman of the year), who had 30 points, and sophomore Tim Hardaway Jr., with 20, carried the Wolverines for most of their game. Ohio State star center Jared Sullinger had 30 points in a game in which the Buckeyes’ starting five accounted for 84 of the team’s 88 points.

There were a few surprises, though, none bigger than the crucial 30 points laid on Indiana by Wisconsin senior reserve Rob Wilson. That total, by far Wilson’s career high, was nearly 10 times his season average, and it came on 11 for 16 shooting that included 7 of 10 from three-point range.

Michigan State center Adreian Payne, a sophomore who could be a rising star but has shown much inconsistency, stepped up big time to fill the playmaking void left when Dawson was injured. Payne only played 20 minutes but scored 16 points on 7 of 8 shooting and pulled down seven rebounds.

And finally, as consolation for Iowa, freshman guard Josh Oglesby showed he may be ready to step up to fill the big shoes of departing senior guard Matt Gatens as the team’s big outside shooting threat. Though the game was already safely in Michigan State’s hands, Oglesby put on a shooting clinic in the final minutes and ended up with a team high 20 points, going 7 of 9 from the floor that included 5 of 7 beyond the arc.

 

 

 

The Moon, The Lake and The Big 10 Basketball Tournament

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Before I get to the subject at hand, which is the first day of the Big 10 men’s basketball tournament, a couple of photos. I hope this isn’t getting tiresome, but there just are days when I look out the window and see things that are breathtakingly beautiful. Tonight, with a clear sky and a full moon illuminating Lake Michigan, was one of those times.

Now, about the basketball… reviewing today’s games in the order they occurred:

Iowa 64, Illinois 61

The first-round matchup between these two teams was appropriate, because each of them defied the expectations held for them at the start of the season — Iowa in a positive sense, Illinois negatively.

Illinois was viewed as a solid middle-of-the-pack team with an outside chance of contending for the Big 10 championship and seemed to verify that early on, as the Illini won their first 10 games, started the conference schedule 11-2 and then won four of their first five Big 10 games, capped by a 79-74 home win over Ohio State, the team favored to win the league title.

Iowa, with a new coach (Fran McCaffrey) and a lack of experienced talent and leadership on the court, was widely viewed as a candidate for last place, and seemed to confirm that early on too. The Hawkeyes were 8-5 in a weak pre-conference schedule that included a loss by 16 points, at home yet, to the Campbell Fighting Camels of the Big South Conference. Iowa then started out the Big 10 season with three wins and six losses that included a 29-point whacking by Ohio State in Iowa City and a 34-point road loss at Michigan State.

But the end of the season was a dramatically different story for both teams. Illinois nosedived, losing 11 of its last 13, and one of its wins was a bizarre 42-41 mess of a home game against Michigan State in which Draymond Green, the Spartans’ star player, was sick and then was knocked out of the game by an injury. Iowa, on the other hand, was 5-4 down the stretch (despite losing at Illinois for the Illini’s only other win) — not spectacular, but enough to boost their Big 10 mark to 8-10 and a tie with Northwestern for 7th place in the now 12-team conference.

Illinois led today’s game, 31-27, at halftime, and led by as much as seven with a little less than 17 minutes to go. But then, as so often this season, the bottom dropped out. By the time a 25-10 Iowa run ended more than 10 minutes later, the Hawkeyes led by eight. Although Illinois teased its fans again by closing to within one on a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left, they could not come all the way back.

Though Illinois could still draw a bid to the second-tier National Invitational Tournament with its overall record of 17-16 (6-13 in the Big 10), it faces a major period of transition. It is widely presumed that the school will part way with Coach Bruce Weber, who had a decent nine-year run but never again approached the heights of his second year, when the Illini went 37-2 and played all the way to the NCAA final before losing a close game to University of North Carolina. Meyers Leonard, the 7-foot-1 sophomore center, has skills that are a work in progress, but his height has drawn interest from the NBA that could prompt him to leave early for the pros.

Iowa, led against Illinois by senior guard Matt Gaten’s 20 points, has to turn around quickly to play Friday against Michigan State, which is seeded number 1 in the tournament after tying for the regular season Big 10 championship with Ohio State and Michigan.

The Spartans are 24-7 overall and 13-5 in the league, but will be tested by a two-game end-of-season slump that saw them lose by 15 at Indiana and by 2 at home to Ohio State in a game that deprived MSU of an outright regular season title. And this will be Michigan State’s first full game without freshman starter Brenden Dawson, who suffered a knee injury in the Ohio State game that required surgery and has him sidelined for the post-season.

Indiana 75, Penn State 58

Nothing much to say in detail about this wholly expected outcome in a game between Indiana — a traditional power whose resurgence after several bad seasons produced an overall record of 25-7 and a Big 10 mark of 11-7 — and Penn State, a team that tied for last in the Big 10 with a 4-14 mark (12-20 overall).

Indiana was led in scoring by junior guard Jordan Hulls, who had 20 points, and freshman center Cody Zeller, who had 19. Zeller also was one of three Hoosiers who pulled down 10 rebounds. Junior guard Tim Frazier led Penn State with 26 points, but the load he had to carry was evident in the fact that he attempted 24 field goals, hitting nine.

Indiana, seeded fifth, moves on to play 4th-seeded Wisconsin (23-8 overall, 12-6 Big 10) in what appears to be a very even matchup. The teams played only once during the regular season, with Wisconsin scoring a 57-50 home win on Jan. 26.

Minnesota 75, Northwestern 68 (overtime)

Northwestern is one of the few Division I basketball programs that has never qualified for the NCAA tournament. After the Wildcats came close in recent years, this season began with high hopes that this would be THE year. But the loss by 7th-seeded Northwestern to #10th seeded Minnesota appeared to snuff out those already flickering hopes.

What has to be especially galling to Northwestern fans is how painfully close their team (now 18-14 on the season) came to being very, very good. Along with a signature 81-74 upset over Michigan State at home in January, Northwestern lost three times in overtime, including both their games with eventual Big 10 co-champion Michigan; came from way behind to tie eventual co-champion Ohio State in their next to last regular season game, only to lose by two at home; also lost at home by one against Illinois and by two against Purdue; and lost by just five at Indiana.

Minnesota, which now has an overall record of 20-13 despite going 7-12 in the Big 10, was led against Northwestern by guard Andre Hollins’ 25 points. The Golden Gophers now play #2 seed Michigan, which won the only regular season matchup between the team by 61-56 in Ann Arbor on New Year’s Day.

Northwestern was led by 24 points by sophomore guard JerShon Cobb, who was hindered by injuries for most of the season, and senior John Shurna, the school’s career scoring leader, who had 21 but was held without a field goal for the last 13 minutes of the game.

Purdue 79, Nebraska 61

Purdue was as inconsistent during the regular season as its 10-8 Big 10 record (6th in the conference) would suggest. But the Boilermakers still overmatched Nebraska, which finished its first basketball season as a member of the Big 10 tied for last place with Penn State at 4-14.

Purdue cinched this victory with runs of 15-0 in the first half and 28-13 in the second half. Five Purdue players finished in double figures. The Boilermakers move on to a much taller challenge in the second round against Ohio State — though they gave the Buckeyes all they could handle before dropping an 87-84 decision in Columbus Feb. 7, their only meeting in the regular season.

As tough as this season was for Nebraska, they now face the prospect of rebuilding. Guards Bo Spencer (22 points) and Toney McCray (13 points) , the Cornhuskers’ leading scorers as they were during the regular season, both are seniors.


Michigan State Hoops: A Championship Season With a Brutal Finale

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It’s my usual practice to provide some instant analysis on major Michigan State athletic contests. But frankly, today’s 72-70 loss at home to Ohio State — which costs the Spartans an outright Big 10 championship and instead ended their regular season with a three-way tie for first by the margin of one basket — was a bit too brutal for me to want to relive so soon.

The day got worse for Spartan fans with the news breaking tonight that the injury that forward Branden Dawson, a rising freshman star, endured about 10 minutes into the game, is a torn knee ACL that will keep him out of post-season play. I’m sure all of Spartan Nation sends him our best wishes for a full and speedy recovery.

I’ll get back to it over the next couple of days in the run-up to the Big 10 tournament, which goes from Thursday through Sunday. Despite today’s defeat, MSU still has the number 1 seed in the tournament and a first-round bye, meaning their first game will be in Friday’s quarterfinals against the winner of Thursday’s game between 8th-seeded Iowa and 9th-seeded Illinois.

To our Spartans, congratulations and thanks for a season (with a 24-7 overall record so far and a final 13-5 regular season mark in the Big 10) that has far exceeded pre-season expectations. We’ll be raising the roof rooting for you in the Big 10 tournament and in the NCAAs beyond.

To Ohio State, congratulations on a gut-check win with a share of the title on the line. Michigan State jumped out to a 15-point lead in the first half, but the Buckeyes took our best punch, whittled away, and hit the game-winning shot that the Spartans could not come up with themselves. Ohio State was the prohibitive pre-season favorite to win the Big 10 title and was ranked #1 in the country for a brief while before hitting a few bumps (including a 10-point loss to Michigan State in Columbus a few weeks ago). So while I’d rather have seen MSU win the regular season crown outright, it doesn’t hurt my feelings to see us in a tie with Ohio State.

The third team in the three-way tie is Michigan, and the spirit of sportsmanship requires me to salute them too. It has been a long uphill climb for the Michigan program to recover from one of the worst pay-for-play scandals in college sports history, which required them to expunge the “Fab Five” team’s visit to the national championship final in 1992, its National Invitational Tournament championship in 1997 and its Big 10 tournament championship in 1998, and to forfeit all its wins for five entire seasons, 1992-93 and from 1995 to 1999. So props to the Wolverines for winning a share of the school’s first Big Ten regular season title in 26 years.

As for Michigan fans who somehow persuaded themselves that it was okay to root today for Ohio State so their team could back into that shared title — wow. How do you live with yourself after rooting for a school you claim to hate worse than the devil himself… even worse than Michigan State? Don’t you feel… tainted?

Oh, well, whatever. Here’s the punch line. In order to get to the final round of the Big 10 tournament, Michigan would almost certainly have to play Ohio State — yep, same Ohio State — in the semifinals. And Michigan State fans can’t wait to return the favor. See, we have no reason to love Ohio State, but the words “Go Buckeyes” don’t taste like poison in our mouths.

Especially when they are playing Michigan.

 

Basketball: The Night Michigan State and I Both Got Blistered

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I did something dumb in the kitchen tonight. Hurrying to finish cooking dinner, I grabbed a cast iron pan from the oven with a towel instead of a hot pad. Like I said, dumb. Left index finger made contact with hot metal and, as the Kramer character on Seinfeld once said, I let the expletives fly. Got ice on it right away, but still gave myself a heck of a blister.

Yet it is symbolic of how much Michigan State’s athletic teams mean to me that the kitchen incident was only the second most-painful thing for me this evening. Number one was the 70-55 defeat that Indiana inflicted on the Spartan men’s basketball team, which came in ranked 5th in the nation after a seven-game winning streak and has clinched at least a share of the regular season Big 10 championship.

The Spartans, now 24-6 overall and 13-4 in the Big 10, came out flat in a place where they could ill afford it. Indiana has an impressive record itself, at 23-7 overall and 10-7 in the conference (including an 80-65 loss when these teams played in East Lansing in their Big 10 opener on Dec. 28). The Hoosiers came into tonight’s game ranked #20 in the nation in large part because it already had staged a series of remarkable upsets on its home court, delivering the only loss that #1 Kentucky has endured all season, on Dec. 10; beating Ohio State, then #2 in the nation, on Dec. 31; and beating Michigan, the team still competing with Michigan State and Ohio State for a share of the Big 10 title, on Jan. 5.

It didn’t take long to fathom that MSU was off its game. Tied 6-6 with three minutes gone in the game, the Spartans allowed Indiana to build at 18-8 lead with a 10-2 run over the next six minutes. The closest they came after that was four points with a bit less than seven minutes left in the first half, but by the break, they were down by 14 (41-27).

Michigan State did muster a bit of a run that closed a 16-point deficit to six with seven minutes left, but went ice-cold again and failed to score another field goal until Travis Trice hit a meaningless layup with 15 seconds left.

Just about everything that could went wrong for MSU in this game. Draymond Green, the senior forward and team captain, tried to put the team on his back and undoubtedly burnished his credentials for Big 10 Player of the Year by scoring a game-high 29 points with eight rebounds. But balanced scoring, a team strength this year, was absent: Green, who on the season averages 21 percent of his team’s total points, carried 53 percent of the load tonight. Senior guard Austin Thornton had a decent night with 3-for-4 shooting, hitting both his 3-point attempts, but that amounted to a total of only eight points.

Indiana, meanwhile, had five players in double figures, topped by 18 for center Cody Zeller, a freshman phenom who the Spartans had held to four points in the Dec. 28 game in East Lansing. MSU also shot a dismal 59 percent (10 for 17) from the free throw line, while Indiana bolstered its margin by nailing 86 percent (19 for 22). And to cap one of the few truly bad games this year, MSU — usually one of the nation’s rebounding powerhouses — was beaten off the boards, 30-28.

The Spartan team has shaken off the handful of previous setbacks this year and will have to do so quickly this time. Their next game, and their regular season finale, is Sunday against Ohio State.

It is not clear yet whether the Buckeyes, now tied for second place with Michigan, will still have a shot at tying MSU for the title, because they first have a road game Wednesday night at Northwestern, a team fighting to qualify for its first NCAA tournament ever. Nonetheless, the Buckeyes, the runaway pre-season favorites to win the Big 10 championship this year, will be seeking to avenge a 58-48 defeat by Michigan State on their home court in Columbus.

But the Spartans come in undefeated in 17 games at MSU’s Breslin Center this season, and their smallest victory margin there has been nine points. Indiana’s team appeared clearly elevated by the enthusiasm of its home crowd tonight. There’s every reason to expect the Spartans’ famous student “Izzone” — named for head coach Tom Izzo — to be every bit the sixth man Sunday on Seniors’ Day, with an outright Big 10 championship on the line.

Now excuse me while I go nurse this finger and a nice glass of whiskey.