Spartans fans can celebrate a national championship or grieve a runner-up finish together at the MSU men’s basketball team’s home arena Monday night. Breslin Center will televise the national championship game Monday night after a successful outing on Saturday, when the Spartans defeated the Connecticut Huskies in Detroit.
Despite an increase in arrests from last year’s Cedar Fest riot, police said they are happy with the “peaceful” celebration that lasted until early Sunday morning in East Lansing following MSU’s Final Four victory Saturday night.
As a Final Four record crowd filled Ford Field on Saturday, thousands more filled the streets, restaurants and viewing sites for the MSU-Connecticut national semifinal game giving Detroit a succinct state of green.
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.”
The MSU men’s tennis team suffered a disappointing loss to Penn State on Sunday, dropping the team to 0-6 in the Big Ten. MSU’s doubles teams went 1-2 on the day, with No. 2 doubles sophomore John Stratton and senior Alex Forger being the only team with a win, 8-5. Singles only walked away with two wins, making the final score 5-2 for Penn State.
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.
As MSU and North Carolina prepare to joust tonight, both teams are scouring through months of footage to pinpoint ways in which they can exploit the opposition. Here are three things each team will probably find it needs to do well in order to cut down the nets as national champions.
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.”
At The Gallery in Snyder-Phillips Hall, almost everything had to be handed to Munaz Muntasir by a cafeteria employee. “They give you forks with a piece of napkin and salt and pepper packs,” said Muntasir, a biochemistry and molecular biology freshman. “I had to ask for a bowl. But I could get my own frozen yogurt.”
ASMSU Student Assembly looked toward the future at its final meeting of the 45th session Thursday. “I am extremely satisfied with what we’ve accomplished this year,” Student Assembly Chairperson Michael Webber said. “We started a lot of initiatives and finished them.”
Aged Montana grass-fed tenderloin brochette. Maine Lobster served over Minnesota toasted wild rice with house-smoked roma tomatoes stuffed with spinach. For dessert, double fudge chocolate pecan brownies, classic New York cheesecake and key lime pie.
Basketball buzz dimmed at least for a moment Friday as people from around the Midwest focused on sharing ideas for new regional environmental policies. Most of the attendees of the Roosevelt Institution’s launch event for a new journal that focuses on environmental issues were members of the institution, which functions like a nationwide student think tank.
The Spartans are riding high on emotion. But it’s not all about them. It’s about a legendary city on the ropes, and a state that’s gone bust in a world that lost its bearings.
I have been attending MSU athletic events for roughly 60 years. I was born and raised five minutes from campus and I graduated from MSU in 1963. I am a volunteer at the NCAA Basketball Final Four in Detroit at Ford Field, and I was there as the team took the floor. I listened to the crowd as they supported the Spartans and then celebrated as the team left the floor to prepare for the championship.