Sophomore forward Draymond Green shoots the ball with eight seconds left on the clock but is blocked by Butler forward Gordon Hayward. Butler defeated MSU, 52-50. Although some Spartans thought Green was fouled on the play, no foul was called.
Indianapolis — On Easter Sunday, I sat in a Lucas Oil Stadium that had all the Green and White sucked out of it and thought about faith — believing in something that, in East Lansing, is religion.
I thought about MSU basketball.
The NCAA Tournament is a funny thing in that all the buzzer beaters and out-of-body experiences change the way you think about the game.
It reaches a point when seeds are thrown out the window and everybody — especially in a season that reflects more parity than any in recent memory — is on an even keel.
Everybody gives you something to believe in.
“These guys, for the most part, did an incredible, incredible job hanging in there,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said after Saturday’s 52-50 Final Four loss to Butler.
“This team, meaning Michigan State, played about as hard under the circumstances we were put in as any team I’ve ever coached here.”
What kind of belief does it take for a coach to have in an always talented, but inconsistent wing like Durrell Summers to give him a second chance in the Big Dance?
After sitting Summers in the loss to Minnesota, many thought the book on the junior guard was written.
He couldn’t defend, didn’t look for his shot, didn’t get up for big games and his talent was wasted. Maybe he didn’t believe in himself, but Izzo did. Summers averaged 16.1 points per game in the tourney and was named the Midwest Regional’s Most Outstanding Player.
What does it say about this group that Izzo had faith in two former walk-ons — Mike Kebler and Austin Thornton — to combine for 19 minutes in a competitive Final Four game?
And what kind of belief does it take for a team to go to battle with a backup point guard like sophomore Korie Lucious, who had never led the Spartans to a victory while calling plays — but then managed to lead them to Indianapolis?
MSU was on life support. Izzo still says we don’t even know how much pain these players endured.
He half-joked that sophomore forward Delvon Roe would have surgery “on the way home” from Indianapolis on Sunday.
When junior guard Kalin Lucas went down against Maryland, the national expectation for MSU to reach the Sweet 16 — let alone its second straight Final Four — vanished.
No one outside East Lansing gave the Spartans a fighting chance in any of their consequential games. That’s the way it is when you take the floor in Mid-Michigan and your conference still is viewed by some as a mid-major.
But that’s the funny thing about the NCAA Tournament. The number of eyes focused on games is infinitely larger than the number of people who really make a difference.
If everyone outside that Breslin Center locker room picked MSU to lose every game but 15 players, a few coaches and a handful of managers believed, guess which matters more?
If I told you MSU would be playing in a Final Four without its best player, its best perimeter defender and its most talented pure frontcourt player, you’d jump on me like I made a petition to change the Spartans logo.
But they did it with less physical firepower and more psychological will and now they think they can get back. And you know what? They can.
Believe it.
Joey Nowak is a State News men’s basketball reporter. He can be reached at nowakjo2@msu.edu.
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
