The highs, lows and inconsistencies of the MSU men’s basketball team’s regular season are in the past. All that matters now is that the Spartans (26-6) are officially in one-and-done territory, learning Sunday evening they earned the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional, drawing No. 15 seed Robert Morris in the first round on Friday at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
“When you start preaching one-and-done time, it’s easy to preach it, but you have to go through it,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. “I think everybody realized after watching the tape (against Ohio State) we did not play great.
“I kind of know where we are — I think we still have some work to do — but I think we’ll have a good three, four days (of practice) ahead of us.”
Tip-off time against the Colonials is set for approximately 9:50 p.m.
MSU’s path to a potential Final Four trip at Ford Field in Detroit would never take them farther than 630 miles from East Lansing. The first two games will be held at the Metrodome, while the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight would be held at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
“That would be a storybook dream,” Izzo said of his team’s potential road to Detroit. “… It’s still (all about) if you can get out of the first weekend, which we all know can be very difficult. But going to Indy would be great for us. All three places are in Big Ten country.”
MSU’s No. 2 seed marks its highest NCAA Tournament position since the Spartans were seeded No. 1 for three consecutive seasons from 1999-2001.
The berth also is MSU’s 12th consecutive trip to the tournament, the fourth-longest active streak in the nation. Arizona (25 straight), Kansas (20) and Duke (14) extended their streaks Sunday, while Kentucky failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 17 years.
The No. 1 seed in the Midwest is Louisville (28-5), which also earned the top overall seed in the tournament. The Big East regular season and postseason tournament champions are joined by Pittsburgh (East), North Carolina (South) and Connecticut (West) as the other No. 1 seeds.
Robert Morris went 24-10 overall and 15-3 in the Northeast Conference, winning both the NEC regular season and NEC Tournament championships.
The Colonials have three players averaging double figures in scoring, led by NEC Conference Player of the Year Jeremy Chappell with 16.9 points per game. Forward Rob Robinson averages 11.4 for the Colonials, while guard Jimmy Langhurst averages 10.
If the Spartans defeat the Colonials on Friday, they will face the winner of No. 7 Boston College and No. 10 Southern Cal on Sunday.
Other top seeds in the Midwest Region are No. 3 Kansas, which MSU beat 75-62 on Jan. 10; No. 4 Wake Forest and No. 8 Ohio State, one of seven Big Ten teams to advance to the NCAA Tournament.
“I liked our chances,” senior center Goran Suton said of his first impression of the bracket. “I mean, I don’t want to get cocky or anything, but I think we have a good chance of moving on to Indianapolis. At the same time, you have to take it one game at a time.”
Although the Spartans like the potential road ahead of them, senior guard Travis Walton said it’s imperative that MSU ups its focus immediately.
In the regular season, there was always another game or another day. Now, Walton said, success is all about maximizing the time the players have in the gym.
“Tonight you have to get some shots up, do some ball handling and do all those little things because it’s almost over,” Walton said. “So, you can’t sit there and say, ‘I wish I would have did this, I wish I would have done that.’ You have to do it now.”
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