It's Easy Being Green: Michigan State holds off Indiana to win outright Big Ten title

In the near future, the Indiana Hoosiers--led by the ever-determined Tom Crean--will compete for championships and bring glory back to the most decorated program in Big Ten history. How fitting it was, then, that the Midwest's team of the past decade, the Michigan State Spartans, had to go through Assembly Hall in order to claim an unshared 2009 title.
 
The backdrop to Tuesday night's tilt was really rather remarkable: Tom Izzo had to defeat his beloved former assistant in order to claim an outright Big Ten crown. The last time MSU attained an undisputed league title, Crean was at Izzo's side during the Spartans' 1999 run to the Final Four in St. Petersburg, Fla. It was as though the teacher had to defeat his pupil one more time, in a mythical tale of poignancy and passage, before a decade in which Indiana might very well become the top dog in the conference and turn Michigan State into the challenger.
 
For one last night, one final season, the Spartans would have their way. But the Hoosiers would make sure the guys in green would have to sweat bullets to stand alone atop the Big Ten, for the first time in a decade.

 
There were multiple occasions in this contest when the Spartans--fueled by an effective Kalin Lucas (a team-high 15 points)--appeared to be on the verge of running away from Crean's kids. But just when the outlook darkened for the white-shirted Hoosiers, the home team ratcheted up its defensive intensity and snuffed out MSU's halfcourt sets. IU overcame a 56-47 deficit midway through the second half and denied the Spartans a field goal for a whopping 8:42. The lock-down defense from the Hoosiers brought them within two points (59-57) with half a minute to play.
 
When a corner jumper by MSU's Durrell Summers clanged off the rim at that point in the action, the real possibility of overtime--or worse, a one-point loss--loomed for the squad that had looked so impressive on Sunday against Illinois. Yes, for a brief moment, the possibility of 6-22 Indiana knocking off 23-5 State loomed in the Assembly Hall air. Crean's message had been sent to Izzo, and IU had told the rest of the Big Ten what future seasons might be like when A-grade talent re-enters the league's most famous basketball program.

The future, however, does not belong to the present. Just 2.5 seconds after the Summers jumper bounced to the right of the basket, Raymar Morgan--finally healthy, finally whole, finally back on the floor for regular minutes--made the biggest single play of his post-injury season. The rangy star needed all of his wingspan to reach back, grab the loose ball with one hand, and--in one spectacular motion--whip the ball through the hoop for a game-breaking, momentum-changing, crowd-silencing, scoreboard-swinging putback dunk that gave the Spartans a 61-57 lead. Because of Morgan's dunk, the final 27.5 seconds turned into a free throw shooting contest. Lucas would nail two free throws with just under 16 seconds left, and when Indiana couldn't respond, a 64-59 win was safely in the Spartans' hands... along with an outright Big Ten championship.
 
The future might belong to Indiana and the understudy-turned-coaching-star who helped Michigan State become great in 1999, but the world of Midwest basketball currently belongs to the master. Yes, Tom Crean might turn the Hoosiers into the Big Ten's program of the decade to come, but the past 10 years have been owned by the man from whom he learned about the coaching profession, Tom Izzo. It makes every bit of sense that Indiana, of all the teams in the league, spilled the tank in the attempt to deny Michigan State a long-overdue mountaintop moment. It's also fitting that the Spartans, for all their struggles against the hard-nosed Hoosiers, ultimately ended a decade of dominance by reclaiming sole possession of the Big Ten.

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