In front of a record-breaking Final Four crowd of 72,456, junior forward Raymar Morgan rose from obscurity and shined in the limelight, finishing with 18 points and nine rebounds for the MSU men’s basketball team, which advanced to the national championship game with a 82-73 win over Connecticut.

“You know, we needed somebody to step up, and (Morgan) stepped up in a huge way,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said. “Not only rebounding the ball, not only defending, not only being physical down there, but the way he scored, and the way he didn’t turn the ball over.”

His past three games, you would have been more likely to find Morgan on the back of a milk carton than in a scoring highlight. Struggling with health issues that have plagued him since January, he averaged just 2.3 points in MSU’s wins against Southern Cal, Kansas and Louisville.

But against the Huskies, Morgan looked like the player who his teammates thought was their MVP earlier this season. He hit shots in traffic, played terrific defense and always seemed to be in position to convert during fast-break opportunities.

For anyone who has studied Morgan over his career, it shouldn’t come as a shock that Morgan played a game like this. That’s because as enigmatic as Morgan is, he’s just as talented. Just when you’re expecting him to drop the ball, he’ll haul in an incredible one-handed catch in the corner of the end zone.

Against UConn, that unpredictability worked in MSU’s favor.

Perhaps figuring Morgan was worth as much to the Spartans as a Canadian penny, the Huskies didn’t seem to make Morgan a central part of their defensive game plan. Instead, they seemed to sag off Morgan and concentrate more on senior center Goran Suton, who throughout the tournament had been MSU’s best player.

In theory, it seemed like the right plan. In practice, it was far from it.

“I said a couple days ago Raymar’s going to be an X-factor,” Suton said. “Raymar was the best player out there, he was huge. The fact that he didn’t score over the last couple games doesn’t matter.

“We know what kind of player he is, he’s probably the best player on this team and for him to have a game like this game at the right time for us.”

After the game, Morgan was asked whether a win on Monday would negate all the issues that have marred his season.

For the first time in what seems like forever, Morgan laughed.

“Definitely,” he said. “If we win it, yeah, I would have to say so. I think that everything would be erased. It’s just a great feeling we got here, but we know we’re on a business trip and we still have one more game.”