Spartans Have Plenty to Play For
When your team has to play one of the Cinderella stories of the tournament, things aren’t easy. Any fans who are neutral will swing to the underdog’s side, and it’s easy for people to forget that your team has some incentive to win. Tom Izzo already knew what it was like, and was reminded of it this weekend.
Michigan State’s 72-61 win over Vermont on Sunday was not the first time Izzo has coached a team to a win over a team poised for a surprise run. In 2001, they beat Gonzaga in the second round en route to their third straight Final Four, and they beat Princeton in the second round in 1998. While Izzo’s reputation as a big-game coach came mostly from the team’s three straight Final Four appearances from 1999-2001, peaking with the national championship in 2000, that reputation should only grow with Sunday’s win.
One might figure that the Spartans didn’t have as much to play for as Vermont. After all, this school has a national title just a few years ago, while Vermont never won an NCAA Tournament game until Friday night. Izzo said that he would have been pulling for Vermont if he wasn’t playing them. But these Spartans aren’t the ones who won that title; no players on this team were part of the championship team, and only Tim Bograkos was part of the Final Four team in 2001.
So we’ve established that this current group of players has something to play for besides the natural desire to win. All came in after the national championship, and the current seniors came in after the last of the three straight Final Four teams, so they would want to establish that legacy of their own. Besides that, this team has been a little non-descript during the season and has flown under the radar; they haven’t been world-beaters and they haven’t been a clear top ten team in the polls week in and week out. They’ve just quietly gone about their business and had a nice season, but Izzo always wants more. Izzo said that before Sunday’s game, he would remind his players of that.
“I’m going to make sure they keep in mind what we’re playing for, and that’s to get some pride back, to get the standards of the program back to a level that these seniors will remember for a long, long time,” he said.
This group of seniors came with high expectations, especially Kelvin Torbert. He was a McDonald’s All-American and ranked by most as perhaps the top shooting guard in his class. Torbert can’t be called a bust just because he hasn’t been an All-American, but certainly he hasn’t played to the potential many figured he had. Still, he’s closing out a solid career, having been the team’s top defender for four years and steadily improving all the time.
The seniors came in after the three consecutive Final Four appearances, so they certainly had a goal to shoot for. Two years ago, they appeared on the verge of becoming a consistent Final Four contender again when they reached the Elite Eight with a relatively young group. Personnel defections hit them hard, and playing arguably the toughest non-conference schedule also contributed to the team barely making the NCAA Tournament last year and losing in the first round. Now, as Izzo said, they’re trying to get back to a higher level.
Said senior Alan Anderson: “We’re just playing for memories. We don’t want our season to end.”
During the three consecutive Final Four runs, the team’s identity had a lot to do with toughness inside. Those teams had a lot of bodies up front, and the Spartans would just pound opponents into submission and own the glass. The last two years, theirs has been a guard-heavy team, one that can get out and run with just about anyone, but with questions at the point guard spot. Izzo isn’t sure about this team’s identity, though he did say last weekend that he feels that this “may be the best fast break team I’ve had, especially after made baskets.”
At the center of the point guard struggles has been Chris Hill. The senior looked primed to take on that role last season after a solid summer showing in the Pan Am Games, but had his struggles and they missed his shooting when he had the ball in his hands often. He’s putting the cap on an excellent career, shooting the ball as well as anyone, making the right passes, and also continuing to be a success in the classroom as an Academic All-American. Of late, freshman Drew Neitzel appears to have solved that problem, but he is still a freshman playing deep in the NCAA Tournament.
The Spartans have a tough matchup with Duke on Friday night. Their depth could be an asset, especially if they can also get Duke’s frontcourt players in foul trouble. They played Duke respectfully during the regular season, losing 81-74 in Durham, so there’s no question they won’t be overmatched. It will be time for Izzo’s big-game coaching ability to show up again.
“I just think this team is capable of big things,” Izzo said. “I think we have the athletes, I think if we get Paul (Davis) going – the rebounding he did today was good, he still kicked the ball out too much for me, I wish he’d take it at them a little more – I think this team is hungry enough.
“My job now is to make sure they realize there’s more around the corner, and see if we can get there.”
The Spartans will try to get there on Friday, and we’ll see if Izzo gets his players to realize what’s there.
