FanHouse Chris Allen

The Michigan State Spartans concluded a very successful season just over a week ago. They rode a two-seed past the defending champions, the top overall seed, and a supremely talented Connecticut squad before falling to the obvious best team in the nation, the NCAA champion Tar Heels.

After a brief rest, the Spartans will eventually get back to work in East Lansing, and it won't be a rebuilding project. It will be a reloading one. They did lose Goran Suton, Travis Walton and Marquise Gray to graduation, but there's plenty left for Tom Izzo to make another Final Four run -- one that would be his sixth in the past 12 years.

Somewhere in Michigan State's middle-class brand of Michigan hope and mixed martial basketball, and North Carolina's mechanized cavalry of an offensive attack, there may be a similarity or two lurking somewhere.

But you've got about as good a chance of finding it as you do spotting an opposing fan in Ford Field's South Pacific of Spartan green.

These two teams couldn't be more different if one of them came out in shoulder pads.

And, with Tom Izzo, who invited Vikings' offensive line coach Pat Morris speak to his team before Saturday night's win, and whose teams always play like it's fourth-and-goal from the one, that could very well be the case.

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From an individual standpoint, this season has been an absolute nightmare for Raymar Morgan. The Michigan State junior came into the season with a chance to get into lottery pick position, as long as his game kept progressing.

Instead, he regressed.

Every regular statistic across the board is down for Morgan this year. He averaged 14 points a game as a sophomore. Since January 17 this season, he's only gotten 5.5 a night. If you would have told Tom Izzo coming into the season he'd be heading to the Final Four with this low of an offensive output from Morgan, he would have thought you were nuts.