A year removed from the stirring speech, the Spartans are back in the Final Four, hoping to take care of a little unfinished business. As Green said, the Tar Heels trailed Kansas by as many as 28 points in their 2008 national semifinal game in San Antonio. In 2009, North Carolina returned as the hands-down favorite to win the title. They led by as many as 23 against the Spartans and cruised to the title.

“To be right there and have it taken from you — it was sad,” senior guard Isaiah Dahlman said. “But then when Day Day spoke up, he reminded everybody this was where North Carolina was last year. They were in the same position, they made it to the Final Four, and their dreams got cut short, but look at what they came back and did.

“In all our minds right there, it set the stage for us to know we’re good enough to get back there.”

MSU was a feel-good story playing in the downtrodden hometown of two of their players, in front of as many as 50,000 MSU fans — maybe more. With pep rallies, ticket requests, phone calls and a bevy of other distractions tugging at their jerseys, some of the Spartans say they might have gotten a bit caught up in it.

The Tar Heels were all business.

“The whole time last year, we were all worried about tickets, when we were leaving, what we were doing there, what we had to bring,” Dahlman said. “This year, it’s just like a Sweet 16 weekend to us. Our attitude hasn’t changed. Last year, we were running all over the place, and if it wasn’t for the thousands of people who supported us, maybe we would have been scared of the bright lights. But this year, the lights are on us, and we like it.”

The road back hasn’t been easy. The Spartans’ combined margin of victory (13) in their four wins is the lowest of any team to reach the Final Four since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. They haven’t yet beaten a team seeded higher than a four. But they’ve reached the mecca of the college basketball world for the sixth time in the past 12 years with the hope of being the last team to walk off the floor in Indianapolis.

“You get that close, and you walk off the court, and the streamers are coming down, and you realize someone else is celebrating,” Izzo said. “You did everything but have that final feeling. But that final feeling — as time goes by, sometimes we forget who was second.”

Butler, MSU’s opponent Saturday (6:07 p.m., CBS), now stands where the Spartans did last year. The Bulldogs are the story of the Final Four, playing their first Final Four just six miles away from their small campus in Indianapolis. They’re the expected beneficiaries of a massive home-crowd advantage at gargantuan Lucas Oil Stadium, while the Spartans are the only team back from last year’s Final Four.

Connecticut was knocked out of the second round of the NIT and North Carolina is playing in the championship this week in New York. Villanova was a two-seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament but lost in the second round to Saint Mary’s.

“It’s been on my mind all year,” Green said. “Especially this tournament run, it’s been on my mind to get back. It’s a chance to do what we wanted to do last year.”

Since that moment, Green has emerged as one of the faces of the Spartans. He’s a media darling, can play almost any role on the floor, has maybe the best basketball IQ of any player in the country and has stepped into the role of co-captain at an early age.

And it all started when he took the reins at Ford Field.

“It was a defining moment for him and for this team,” said graduate assistant Travis Walton, who was a senior captain last season. “They had their ups and downs, but they had enough cockiness and confidence about themselves that, even when things go wrong, when it becomes money time, they get things done. My time was over. And even when it was my time, that’s why you’re a family. If anybody’s got something to say, that’s what makes you strong.”

Green said the concept of class, year or playing time determining who could speak never crossed his mind.

“It really doesn’t matter what class you’re in,” Green said. “I’ve been a leader my entire life, so I always felt if I needed to say something, my mom always taught me to speak your mind. I always felt if I needed to say something, and I had to say, just say it.”

For a team whose defining moment this season is an injury — when junior guard Kalin Lucas went down in the second half of the Spartans’ second-round game against Maryland with a ruptured Achilles’ tendon — the Spartans have struggled to find just the right combination of skill, passion and chemistry.

But with their best player on the bench, MSU has put together the most improbable of tournament runs. They’re playing with high levels of leadership and chemistry while zoning out distractions (the three keys Izzo has highlighted all year). They’ve continued to defy the odds and now have the opportunity to reach the goal they set for themselves last year.

“When you’re an 18 to 22-year-old, it doesn’t take much to motivate you, especially if you’re a competitor,” Dahlman said. “And those words right there, from Day Day being one of the biggest competitors, it meant a lot to the team. In the summer, the whole season — coach mentioned it a couple times this season, that we wanted to and could get back — we might not have believed it.

“But now we do.”__