Senior guard Keith Appling looks for an open teammate during the game against Mount St. Mary’s on Nov. 29, 2013, at Breslin Center. Khoa Nguyen/The State News
North Carolina. Primetime on ESPN. Nearly fifteen thousand fans, all packed inside Breslin Center.
There’s no doubt about it — tonight’s Big Ten/ACC Challenge showdown between the No. 1 MSU men’s basketball team and UNC will be a critical — and loud— one.
Head coach Roy Williams and his Tar Heels (4-2 overall) usually walk into games against MSU (7-0) as the expected winner, but tonight, the roles will be reversed. MSU will be welcoming the Tar Heels, who have won the last six meetings, to East Lansing for the first time since 2000 — the last time the Spartans won the matchup.
The most recent clash was literally a spectacle, with the battle taking place on USS Carl Vinson in the 2011 Carrier Classic. The Spartans’ poor shooting resulted in a 67-55 loss, and now, the Spartans are looking for revenge in front of a raucous home crowd.
“The Izzone’s going to be rocking, the (Breslin) is going to be packed, and it’s going to remind us of a Big Ten game,” sophomore guard Gary Harris said after practice Monday. “It’s going to be crazy.”
Harris, the team’s leading scorer, who had taken a 10-day break since the Oklahoma game to rest his ankle, was given a “99 percent” chance to play by head coach Tom Izzo.
“I’m trying to get that thing healed so he has the freedom to play like he wants to play,” Izzo said on Monday. “We’ve got a lot of good players right now, but where he is different than all those other ones is (that) he is a game changer on both ends, maybe all three spots.”
Having Harris back in the lineup would be a crucial asset, especially against a team as unpredictable as UNC. The Tar Heels made some noise when they toppled then-No. 3 Louisville — the defending national champs — by nine points, but the game came after a loss to unranked Belmont and was then followed up with a defeat at the hands of unranked UAB. The losses could be pointed at as fluky games created by horrid free throw shooting and the absence of suspended star guard P.J. Hairston, but Izzo knows the Tar Heels still are a threat.
Sophomore guard Marcus Paige has been part of the glue of UNC’s offense, with 20.8 points per game.
It is likely Harris or senior guard Keith Appling will be assigned to defend him. Regardless of how well Appling or Harris play, the Spartans will be hard-pressed to see him shoot as poorly as he did against UAB.
“We just got to come in prepared to hit them with the first punch and… play as hard as we can,” Appling said.
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
