Thursday, March 28, 2024

Senior shares tale of rings

MSU senior center Jason Andreas attempts to influence the official's call after a struggle for the loose ball with Indiana guard Roderick Wilmot during the game on January 31 at the Breslin Center. The Spartans defeated the Hoosiers, 84-72. —

At nearly 7 feet tall, it's doubtful anyone would confuse senior center Jason Andreas with a Hobbit. But MSU's senior center certainly knows the power of a ring.

As one of two current players on the MSU men's basketball team to win a Big Ten Championship, Andreas can teach his teammates a lot about what it takes to win a conference title.

But last week, for a little extra motivation, he actually showed them the rings he won as part of MSU's past championship teams.

"We got the trophy case with all the rings up there, but none of the guys have really touched them or tried them on," he said. "I thought it'd be something that would help.

"Ever since then, guys have been talking about it, getting themselves a ring. Hopefully, they got that in the back of their mind when we're playing."

Andreas said redshirt freshman forward Delco Rowley was particularly intrigued by his jewelry.

"He tried to steal them, I think," Andreas joked.

Winning a Big Ten Championship is serious business, and Andreas' showcase helped the team come to that realization, freshman guard Shannon Brown said.

"We're just trying to make up in our minds that's what we want," Brown said. "We want rings and we just got to go out and play hard."

Andreas and junior guard Tim Bograkos are the last two links MSU has to the four straight Big Ten titles it won from 1998 to 2001. Bograkos said it is important for MSU to continue winning conference championships so those experiences can be passed on to incoming players.

"If you break that chain of having somebody on the team, it's kind of like rebuilding all over again," he said.

This season, MSU (13-9 overall, 8-3 Big Ten) has positioned itself to win its fifth Big Ten title in seven years and maintain its championship chain. The Spartans are in second place, three of their five remaining games are at home and they play host to first-place Wisconsin in the regular-season finale.

"I like the position we're in," head coach Tom Izzo said. "I don't feel comfortable that the position we're in necessarily gives us an easier road. I like the position we're in that we have control of it. We don't need any help, we just got to do our job."

With the Big Ten title in sight, Izzo said the leadership of Andreas and Bograkos will play a big part in MSU's championship effort. Their lessons already have made an impact on some of the Spartans.

"Ninety percent of this team hasn't really played for (a championship) before, and coach and Jason and Tim, they're really trying to get everybody to understand what this really means," sophomore center Paul Davis said. "You can't have hardly any games where you make a lot of errors and we got to understand that."

Besides showing off his championship rings, Andreas said he has tried to teach his teammates about the mental toughness needed to win games this late in the season.

"Our tournament run last year was a good experience for everybody," he said. "It put them in a position where they had to win. So, those guys do have experiences and we do need to share them with the younger guys."

The Spartans' next step in their climb towards a Big Ten Championship is against Purdue (16-8, 6-5) today at Breslin Center. The Boilermakers are one of three Big Ten teams to have beaten MSU, but since beating the Spartans, they have lost four of their last six games.

Izzo said Purdue's recent struggles are deceiving because they were without senior guard Kenneth Lowe, the team's leading scorer, for more than three of those six games. Lowe sprained his left elbow in Purdue's loss to Indiana on Jan. 27.

"There's no question Purdue is as good a team as there is in the Big Ten," he said. "They proved that every minute, except when they lost their key people."

A win against Purdue would put the Spartans closer to a conference title and, of course, a nice set of championship rings.

"We've talked about it all year," Andreas said. "But it's come to the point where you can talk about it, you can look at the rings ... we've got five games now. If we take care of our business, we can get one of those rings; we can cut the nets down."

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