After a tumultuous season, MSU men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo said Saturday he hoped Selection Sunday would be as miserable as possible for him and his players.
More than 30 minutes into Sunday’s selection show, with the Spartans having yet to hear their name called, it was apparent Izzo had received exactly what he wanted.
But finally, as the second-to-last at-large team named, MSU was announced as the No. 10 seed in the Southeast region, playing No. 7 seed UCLA at 9:20 p.m. Thursday in Tampa, Fla.
“Being the last Big Ten team to get announced and being one of the last teams picked, I guess I got my wish,” Izzo said smiling at a press conference Sunday night.
“I wasn’t as nervous today as I was for about the last month about things, but I feel fortunate to get in.”
The Spartans (19-14 overall, 9-9 Big Ten) gathered in the MSU locker room at Breslin Center to watch the selection show Sunday night, and players and coaches alike sat anxiously as team after team was selected.
Six Big Ten teams were selected before MSU, and by the time senior guard Kalin Lucas finally saw the Spartans’ name on the big screen, he had been worrying for quite some time.
“I started getting nervous toward the end,” Lucas said.
“We were like one of the last four teams to be picked. That’s when it started to hit me a little bit, so when they called Michigan State, I was relieved.”
Lucas and the rest of his teammates finally can breathe easy, as they now prepare for what they hope is another long run in March.
Thursday’s game, which starts at 9:20 p.m. on TBS, will be MSU’s 14th consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament — a streak that trails only Kansas (22) and Duke (16) nationally. It’s a streak that Izzo is happy to see continue, especially considering it was in serious jeopardy this season.
“For me, what we’re always trying to do here is have some model of consistency,” Izzo said.
“Getting the 14th when you have a year like this to me is very important. There’s only two or three other teams that have a longer streak or as long of a streak, and that speaks volumes when you talk about the overall picture.”
As far as the players were concerned, they said it was important for them to keep the streak alive because they didn’t want to be the group to let it end on their watch.
“I’m definitely one of those guys that’s all about the tradition of past players,” junior forward Draymond Green.
“A lot of guys have done a lot of work to keep that streak going, and I didn’t want to be one of those players to break it.”
Now that the Spartans can stop worrying about getting in the tournament, they can begin to focus on the Bruins.
MSU and UCLA both rank in the top five in all-time NCAA Tournament winning percentage and the top seven in national championships.
When the two teams take the floor Thursday, it will be a matchup between two of the most successful programs in tournament history.
The Spartans and Bruins last met in 2007, when this year’s senior class were all freshmen. UCLA won that meeting, 68-63, in Kansas City, Mo., but both teams enter Thursday with much different looks.
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Although that meeting was a regular season game, Thursday will be the first time the two storied programs will meet in an NCAA Tournament game.
However, it won’t be MSU’s first trip to Tampa, as the Spartans played there as a No. 7 seed in 2003.
MSU advanced to the Sweet Sixteen that year with wins against No. 10 seed Colorado and No. 2 seed Florida, which coincidentally is the same seed in the Spartans’ region again this year.
After junior forward Delvon Roe was able to relax following MSU’s selection, he said he had a chance to look at the Spartans’ bracket.
And although he acknowledged he only is worried about the Bruins right now, he liked what he saw in MSU’s region.
“It’s great,” Roe said. We’re not afraid of any of those teams in our bracket.”
