Same two teams. Same venue. Same sad story for the MSU men’s basketball team. Four months after thumping the Spartans by 35 points at Ford Field, North Carolina came back to the Motor City on Monday night and reaffirmed that it is the best team in the nation, as the Tar Heels throttled MSU 89-72 to claim the 2009 NCAA national championship.
After watching North Carolina embarrass MSU during the ACC-Big Ten Challenge in December, I left Ford Field absolutely convinced of two things. 1) The Tar Heels would be back here for the national championship game. 2) They wouldn’t be playing MSU. Hey, one-for-two ain’t too shabby.
Tom Izzo is a realist. The MSU men’s basketball head coach knows that if both MSU and North Carolina play “good” in tonight’s NCAA national championship game, then the trophy is going to the Tar Heels. “That’s the way I look at it,” Izzo said at his press conference on Sunday at Ford Field. “I mean, I don’t look at that in the negative. They are the best team in the country, and have been that. (They) have earned that rank probably over a year and a half. But we found a way to have some teams not play as good against us.”
Among the tens of thousands of MSU fans who flocked to Detroit this weekend for the Final Four, there were thousands of alumni and even a few connected with the MSU men’s basketball program.
The road ends here. The Final Four’s catchphrase holds true tonight in Detroit when the No. 2-seed MSU men’s basketball (31-6) team will meet No. 1-seed North Carolina (33-4) in the national championship game at 9:21 p.m. at Ford Field.
Call it fate. Call it destiny. Call it kismet. All those adjectives will be applicable Monday night, when the MSU men’s basketball team get a second chance to take down North Carolina at Ford Field.
Bryan Tibaldi never made it to the NCAA national championship as a player. But sitting in the corner of a Ford Field locker room on Sunday, the former MSU walk-on turned graduate manager was doing everything he could to make sure his first trip to college basketball’s biggest stage was going to be a success.
Throughout the postseason, MSU senior center Goran Suton has opened a lot of eyes with his offensive versatility. However, it’s Suton’s talent on defense that could play a much bigger role tonight in the national championship game against North Carolina.
One win would give North Carolina the 2009 national championship. It would also give its eight-man senior class — which includes Marcus Ginyard, Bobby Frasor, Danny Green and Tyler Hansbrough — 124 career wins, the most of any class in North Carolina history.
When asked to compare his team to North Carolina, MSU men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo didn’t sugarcoat his feelings. “If we play good and they play good, we’re losing,” Izzo said during a press conference Sunday at Ford Field. “That’s the way I look at it.”
Detroit — After weeks of operating incognito, the man behind the mask finally revealed his true identity. And he couldn’t have picked a better time — or a bigger stage — to do it.
Detroit — Sophomore guards Chris Allen and Durrell Summers were scoreless in the first half. So was senior center Goran Suton. But the MSU men’s basketball team was beating Connecticut on Saturday night in the national semifinals and once again the Spartans proved why no single player is the face of the team.
Detroit — At the first NCAA Tournament press conference in Minneapolis, Raymar Morgan told reporters he was going to show the world what they had been missing. It took him five games to deliver on his statement, but it was well worth the wait for the junior forward and the MSU men’s basketball team.
Detroit — Before his team’s game against Connecticut, MSU sophomore guard Kalin Lucas made a special request. Instead of being listed as a native of Sterling Heights, which has been the case all season, Lucas wanted the world to know where he was really from.
Spartans fans of all ages bled green and white tonight at Breslin Center. About 4,000 fans, ranging from ages 2 to more than 70, came to Breslin to watch the men’s basketball team secure a win over Connecticut.
Detroit — As expected, the majority of people flowing into Detroit are Spartan fans. Cheli’s Chilli Bar is the designated bar for MSU fans and opened at 9 a.m. By 3 p.m., people in line were waiting an hour and a half to get in, the majority of whom were recent MSU graduates.
Detroit — Connecticut’s Hasheem Thabeet is getting most of the publicity heading into the Final Four, but MSU has a foreign center of its own that could pay huge dividends Saturday night. And it isn’t Goran Suton.
Detroit — Although it cruised through the West Region to reach the Final Four, it’s been anything but smooth sailing for the Connecticut men’s basketball team this season.
From the Upper Peninsula to the southeast corner, the Rust Belt to the western frontier, the MSU basketball program has Michigan covered. MSU head basketball coach Tom Izzo emphasizes building his program on local products, and perhaps no team represents the entire state better than his 2009 Final Four squad. When the team takes the court against Connecticut on Saturday evening, it will be playing for more than fans back in East Lansing.
Playing just a short drive from Breslin Center, the MSU men’s basketball team will try to knock off its second consecutive Big East opponent when it faces Connecticut at 6:07 p.m. Saturday in the Final Four at Ford Field. The Huskies (31-4) finished second in the talented Big East this year while the Spartans (30-6) won the Big Ten regular season championship.