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 — As the final seconds ticked down, the dancing began in downtown Detroit. MSU fans of all ages embraced and cheered as their Spartans moved into the national championship with a 82-73 victory over Connecticut.
Detroiters know what the outsiders think. They hear the TV news anchors. They read the newspapers. They know about the city’s nation-high unemployment rate and the image that pops into mind when people think about Detroit.
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.
Senior guard Travis Walton said the MSU men’s basketball team is going to go inside against Connecticut and its 7-foot-3 center Hasheem Thabeet. Sophomore guard Kalin Lucas, however, said the Spartans can’t go to the basket because of the risk of getting blocked by Thabeet.
During his sophomore year, Travis Walton was sitting at a barbershop when he overheard a man talking about God. “Do you really believe that?” Walton asked the stranger. He replied that he did. The man was Jesse Brown, a pastor at Rivers of Life Church, 2495 N. Cedar St., in Lansing. His message struck Walton, now a senior guard on the MSU men’s basketball team. Interested and intrigued by Brown and his beliefs, Walton began going to Rivers of Life regularly — although only after his grandmother met and approved of Brown.
A few years ago, MSU men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo was sitting in his office at the Alfred Berkowitz Basketball Complex. Across from Izzo was Kalin Lucas, an ultra-fast high school guard, and Lucas’ parents, Kenneth and Tina.
Of the four teams left in the field, the MSU men’s basketball team has arguably the least NBA talent on its roster. On Thursday, senior guard Travis Walton was asked if he was concerned his team’s lack of star talent hurts its chances.
The MSU men’s basketball team has learned a valuable lesson this week: When you’re on top of the college basketball world, everyone wants something from you. Even a Wolverine.
When the MSU men’s basketball team made its remarkable run to the Final Four in 2005, three redshirts sat on the end of the bench waiting for their chance to get on college basketball’s biggest stage.
When Durrell Summers takes the court Saturday night, the sophomore guard will know exactly what he’s up against. MSU’s opponent, Connecticut, is a juggernaut of a team. The Huskies blazed through the West Region like a forest fire, winning their four tournament games by an average of 25.5 points. In all those games combined, they trailed for a total of three minutes and 27 seconds.
Entering the 2005 NCAA Tournament, many experts figured MSU would be first-round mincemeat. As the dangerous five-seed, the Spartans opened their postseason run against Old Dominion, a mid-major that experts thought was ripe for a deep run in the tournament.
During the regular season, MSU sophomore guard Chris Allen’s role on the team was fairly simple. He was a scorer, and only a scorer. On a good day, Allen was good for about 10 points off the bench. The problem was, he hadn’t been experiencing too many of those days.