65 schools are invited to the NCAA Tournament, which means 64 have to lose before a champion is crowned. Michigan State just happened to be the 64th team, falling amidst a blitzkrieg of Tarheel Blue.
North Carolina was just a bit too good for Michigan State to get a firm grasp on. Tyler Hansbrough and Deon Thompson used lightning quick post moves that Spartan defenders were not ready for. Wayne Ellington fired up shot after shot with just a sliver of space between himself and a green-shirted defender, and they kept dropping through the net. Ty Lawson took advantage of the Spartans trying to force the ball upcourt and snagged seven steals in the first half. This game was effectively over when the teams headed to their respective locker rooms at halftime.
Of course, it was not all about how well North Carolina played, it was also about how poorly the Spartans returned the favor. The poised and controlled Michigan State offense we saw in the last five NCAA Tournament games did not make an appearance. Instead, the herky-jerky turnover-prone squad showed up for one last fling at the worst time possible.
And still, the Spartans had a little bit of oxygen left in the second half, trailing by just 13 with 4:46 to go. They were in a position where a few buckets and defensive stands could have dramatically tightened the score up. Alas, it was not meant to be.
But you can’t help but wonder what could have been if a few more MSU three-point attempts had gone in (Chris Allen was 0-for-7 and had several wide-open looks), or if UNC hadn’t started out red-hot from the field. After all, the gameplan almost worked. Izzo was willing to give Hansbrough and Lawson theirs in exchange for locking down on the other Tarheel contributors (Ellington, Thompson, Davis, Green). Unfortunately for the green-and-white, those guys showed up in a big way.
This is the kind of game that breeds champions. One year ago, North Carolina was in the Final Four and favored to sweep their way through to claim the 2008 National Championship. The sting of defeat to Kansas (the eventual champion) prompted the collegiate returns of Lawson & Hansbrough, and fueled the 2009 squad to achieve what it did yesterday.
If there is a silver lining in defeat, it’s that the core of this team knows exactly what it needs to do to get back to this stage, and they’re going to be motivated by an intense hunger to return to the Final Four and redeem themselves.
Let’s just hope that Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington feel that they’ve done enough at the collegiate level.
Congrats to the champion Tarheels. Hats off to a one heckuva team, the kind that doesn’t come along very often.
And here’s one last glass raised to Michigan State’s 2008-09 season.