FanHouse Michigan State

In a sea of green, Michigan State flat out drowned.

In life, you may never get a second chance to make a first impression.

But if you bomb it as badly as Michigan State did in its 98-63 loss to North Carolina in December that was godawful embarrassing even by the standards of a stadium that hosts the Lions, you'll get months, if not a lifetime, to explain exactly what went wrong.

And if you're the Spartans, you get a second chance to make it right.

At least after you explain. And explain. And explain.

Here on FanHouse, I've discussed the maligned Big Ten ad nauseum. For some reason, people just love to hate the power conference of the midwest. Droves of fans and media alike cried foul when the conference received seven total bids to the NCAA tournament -- conveniently ignoring the fact that three of the teams were given double-digit seeds.

After two rounds, I believe the conference was vindicated to an extent. Michigan and Wisconsin advanced, and Purdue went to the Sweet 16. Still, a deep run was probably needed by someone to quiet the critics. Enter Michigan State, participants in Monday night's national championship game.

This is only a game.

At least, in the sense that anything with the population of Youngstown, Ohio sitting courtside can be just a game. In the sense that something with a television deal that could bail out the auto industry, the banks and the WNBA in one fell swoop can be just a game.

It's no great moral play in three acts with hugs at the end. North Carolina won't hit the warmup lines in capes and monocle, laugh maniacally and lash poor Lupe Izzo to a railroad track. And that block S in Michigan State's logo stands for nothing more than State, not Supermen.

DETROIT -- Maybe it's his folksy arrogance, the Huckleberry Hound-with-an-attitude rub. Maybe it was the way he lectured TV reporter Bonnie Bernstein, saying, "I could give a (bleep) about Carolina right now" when she asked about his future plans after his 2003 national title-game loss. Maybe it was the Kansas button he wore last year, a weird show of allegiance for an ex-employer in the championship game after the Jayhawks had whipped his Tar Heels.

Or maybe America simply is growing weary of North Carolina, the powder bluebloods who dominate April like azaleas at Augusta and fools on the 1st.

---

---

DETROIT -- Somewhere on the Road to the Final Four, which once it finally gets to this championship round is called The Road Ends Here, should have been some guys holding placards that read: "Hooping for a Cause."

They should've been wearing Michigan State green and North Carolina blue. They should've been Spartans and Tar Heels led by Tom Izzo and Roy Williams. They should've been the two teams that survived to Monday night's title game.

Most survivors to the championship game are motivated simply by the title of champion at the end of the journey. These two teams are as well.

---

---

Sure, the only thing you'll get better odds on than North Carolina winning Monday night is Roy Williams dropping a frick or two on the sideline, but the Heels can be beaten. How? From tracking Ty to cleaning the glass, here's Michigan State's five-point plan to topple North Carolina.

---

---

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.

---

---

DETROIT -- In an earlier journalistic life, Friday would've been a really big day for me. The reason: the government, each first Friday of the month, issued its most-important piece of economic news -- the unemployment report -- and I covered economics. The report it issued this Friday was an instant Page 1 story, which is what they called the first thing you saw on this thing I worked at forever called a newspaper. Friday's report revealed the recession we're in pushed the unemployment rate to its highest mark in a quarter century, 8.5 percent.