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.
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.
After its 2000 National Championship, the MSU men’s basketball team lost Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson and A.J. Granger. Luckily for head coach Tom Izzo, the Spartans had Charlie Bell, Andre Hudson and Jason Richardson coming back, along with two dynamite freshmen in Marcus Taylor and Zach Randolph.
In 2007, ESPN reporter Andy Katz wrote a piece anointing MSU as the top basketball program over the past 10 seasons. Two years later, I’m ready to take that coronation a step further. Not only has MSU been the nation’s best program in that span, head coach Tom Izzo has been the nation’s best coach.
Tom Izzo blames Bo and Woody. In the 1960s and ’70s, Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler and Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes were the poster boys of a rough-and-rugged Big Ten Conference.
The MSU men’s basketball team has all the storylines. The season is the 30th anniversary of the basketball program’s first national championship.
Fresh off making his first Final Four in 1999, MSU men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo knew the 2000 season had the chance to be even more special. With nearly every key player returning for his senior season — including Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson and A.J. Granger — Izzo felt his team had the talent, experience and toughness to win a national championship.
The MSU men’s basketball team won the Big Ten Championship the year before, but the Spartans dynasty arguably began in 1998-99.