For a man who said goodbye to his 2009 team as reluctantly as a kid giving back a puppy, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo took the fastest possible route to this year's season kick-off.
He arrived in an Indy Car.
With the Final Four in Indianapolis, you don't exactly need your college lit professor to explain the symbolism of Izzo's Midnight Madness ride, (though the prof might help in search of the metaphor to describe what a 220-pound man wedged in a car the sized of a futon looks like). Then again, you might just consider it foreshadowing of a Big Ten race that'll be just as fierce as anything waged on the brickyard.
Please be sure to buckle up.
"I honestly see nine or 10 ... teams that could realistically win the league," Izzo said at the Big Ten media day. "Top to bottom, the league is the best it's been in a long time."
For a man who said goodbye to his 2009 team as reluctantly as a kid giving back a puppy, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo took the fastest possible route to this year's season kick-off.
He arrived in an Indy Car.
With the Final Four in Indianapolis, you don't exactly need your college lit professor to explain the symbolism of Izzo's Midnight Madness ride, (though the prof might help in search of the metaphor to describe what a 220-pound man wedged in a car the sized of a futon looks like). Then again, you could consider it it foreshadowing of a Big Ten race that will be just as fierce and clustered as anything waged on the brickyard.
Please be sure to buckle up.
"I honestly see nine or 10 ... teams that could realistically win the league," Izzo said at the Big Ten media day. "Top to bottom, the league is the best it's been in a long time."
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.
With Michigan State looming, the Tar Heels look to avoid being the third No. 1 seed toppled by the Spartans. Conventional wisdom would state that all UNC has to do is play their game in order to win -- seeing as they have superior talent -- but Michigan State is humming right now. So, we'll examine five ways to beat the Spartans, though none of them are surefire ways. After all, we know how tenacious Spartans can be.Check here for how Michigan State can beat UNC.
1. Play a Zone
I'm normally not a huge proponent of playing zone, but I've seen too many teams burned by Michigan State's execution in the half-court recently. They screen well, they pass well, they never stop moving, they slash to the basket, and they don't shoot the three too often (less than 15 attempts per game this season).
Tom Izzo has used words like "enigma" and "challenging" to describe Raymar Morgan. He has spoken of the difficulty he's had in finding the multi-talented junior forward to keep his mood up, and to play with consistency. In a year of challenges overcome at Michigan State, Morgan has represented one of Izzo's most persistent coaching conundrums.
But after Morgan went off for 18 points, nine rebounds and five steals Saturday night in the Spartans' national semifinal victory over Connecticut, the word Izzo used to describe Morgan was short and simple: "Best."
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.
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.
Tom Izzo has coached the Michigan State Spartans for the past 15 seasons. It took him two years to get the program where he wanted it. In those last 13 seasons, they have gone to the NCAA Tournament all 13 times, the Sweet 16 eight times, the Elite Eight six times and the Final Four five times. He's never coached a player for four years without taking him to a Final Four. That's as impressive a resume as anyone in college basketball has.
Yet, if you asked non-Big Ten fans to rank the four coaches in this year's Final Four, he'd likely come in third place -- behind Jim Calhoun and Roy Williams -- for most of them.
It's been a tough season for Michigan State to get to full health. That the Spartans finally appeared to be fully healthy by the time they reached the Elite Eight had to make coach Tom Izzo a little more encouraged. Naturally, that just could not be true for this season. Raymar Morgan, who appeared to only have bloodied his nose in the game with Kansas on Friday, has a broken nose.
It won't stop the starting forward from playing on Sunday against Louisville. When Izzo appeared on CBS before the start of Saturday's games, he said that Morgan would be wearing a protective facemask, adding that "he would look a bit like [Detroit Piston Richard] Hamilton."
For a man who said goodbye to his 2009 team as reluctantly as a kid giving back a puppy, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo took the fastest possible route to this year's season kick-off.
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. 
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. 
From an individual standpoint, this season has been an absolute nightmare for 
It's been a tough season for Michigan State to get to full health. That the Spartans finally appeared to be fully healthy by the time they reached the Elite Eight had to make coach 
