But in retrospect, we should have seen the gradual demise of the 2010-11 squad coming.
Looking back — all the way back to the beginning of the summer — the Spartans were set up to fail. The expectations were too high, and the distractions were too great.

It was the perfect storm, and MSU didn’t stand a chance.

The emotional rollercoaster began in June 2010 when head coach Tom Izzo spent more than a week contemplating his future.

The NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers came calling, and while it wasn’t the first time Izzo had to think about moving to the professional ranks, it was the closest he ever came to pulling the trigger.

He didn’t, though — electing to stay in East Lansing, where he said he wants to remain for the rest of his career.

Personally, I don’t think the time Izzo spent contemplating the Cavaliers job had a negative effect on this year’s team.

However, who’s to say it didn’t?

When it comes to college-age kids, a wide range of events or issues can affect them emotionally — a theme that we saw play out the entire season.

Regardless of how Izzo’s flirtation with the NBA impacted the team — arguably the biggest blow of the summer, other than injuries to seemingly every player — the biggest impact came when Chris Allen officially was kicked off the team in early August 2010.

Allen wasn’t always the most popular player among the Spartans, and his issues off the court had become too much of a problem.

But that doesn’t change the fact he was an athletic guard with Final Four experience and a potential to be lethal from the outside.

Still, without Allen, MSU remained the preseason No. 2 team in the country behind defending champion Duke, and many expected the two programs to meet up in the Final Four in Houston.
Then the hits kept coming.

The murderer’s-row schedule for the Spartans was nothing unusual for an Izzo-coached team.

But for a group struggling in so many ways, it might have been too much this year, especially with senior guard Kalin Lucas spending more than half the season trying to get back into shape following one of the most bizarre injuries Izzo had ever seen last season.

And along with taking on top talent, MSU always seemed to be on the road during the nonconference season, sometimes without all of its players.

Sophomore center Derrick Nix was supposed to have a breakout season after getting himself into the best shape of his life last summer.

It never happened, though. In November 2010, Nix didn’t go with the Spartans to Maui, Hawaii, and there were rumblings that he might transfer.

Nix stuck it out, playing the rest of the season, but he never was the player everyone thought he could have been this season.

Finally, the Big Ten season rolled around, and it appeared MSU might have found its rhythm.
But for this team, that would have been too easy.

Just days before hosting rival Michigan in January at Breslin Center, junior guard Korie Lucious was dismissed from the team for the rest of the season and what would turn out to be forever. The Spartans lost to the Wolverines at home for the first time since 1997.

And if you thought that was the lowest MSU could get this season, you sadly were disappointed when the Spartans lost their next game by 20 points to lowly Iowa — one of the worst teams in the Big Ten.

Through all of the adversity, though, MSU kept fighting, and by beating then-No. 9 Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament, the Spartans locked up a 14th consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

And that’s where the rollercoaster finally came to a stop.

In what ended up being a microcosm of the season, No. 10 seed MSU fell behind by as much as 23 in the second half to No. 7 seed UCLA last Thursday in Tampa, Fla., only to pull to within one.

But in a season such as the one the Spartans just finished, it was only fitting that they fell just short, losing 78-76.

Nothing about this season was easy, including the way it ended, and nobody should have expected it to be.

However, high expectations have become the norm at MSU, and it probably will be the same next season and the next.

This season, it just wasn’t meant to be. And we should have seen it coming.

Jeremy Warnmuende is a State News sports reporter. He can be reached at warnemu3@msu.edu.