NCAA Championship Game: Old demons haunt Michigan State in loss to North Carolina

 
After the first game of this year's Final Four, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said that he'd remember his team's national semifinal win over Connecticut for a very long time.
 
After the third game of the 2009 Final Four, that sensational Saturday will remain the best memory of the Spartans' extended weekend in Detroit.
 
A disjointed, nerve-filled offensive performance led Michigan State astray, as the Spartans endured a lopsided 89-72 loss to North Carolina in the NCAA National Championship Game. MSU ends its season with a great deal of satisfaction, a 31-7 record, and a proud program's first finish as a national runner-up. The defeat represented one sour note in an otherwise brilliant campaign for a team that fulfilled so many of its goals... all but one.
 
Michigan State helped the Motor City, the state of Michigan, and the sport of college basketball by getting to Monday night's title tilt at a packed Ford Field. The presence of a home-state program gave the ultimate weekend in college hoops an appropriate big-event feel. As MSU prepared for a home-sweet-dome rematch with North Carolina, the reality of roughly 55,000 Spartan fans cheering on their heroes not only electrified the sprawling stadium in Motown; it meant that an underdog from East Lansing had every chance of taking down an awesome opponent from Chapel Hill.

There was just one problem with the big buildup to the event college basketball coaches simply refer to as "Monday Night": The Spartans never allowed their crowd to become a factor in the proceedings, all because old demons resurfaced at the worst possible moment.
 
From the moment this title tilt began, Michigan State displayed the defects and deficiencies that emerged in Sparty's regular-season losses. Most MSU losses in 2009 involved high turnover numbers, loads of missed threes, and impatient halfcourt offense. Plainly put, those three ghosts spooked Sparty against King Carolina.
 
On a night when the guys in green clearly tried too hard to win a championship for Detroit and all Michiganders, point guard Kalin Lucas--only a sophomore, remember--couldn't control the game's pace. On the possessions when they didn't turn the ball over, the Spartans launched 3-pointers early in the shot clock, which prevented Michigan State from rebounding and then getting back to defend the Tar Heels' devastating transition attack. The flood of giveaways and bad shots enabled Roy Williams' veteran squad to remove any suspense from this season-ending showdown.
 
How decisive was Carolina's second conquest of the Big Ten champions? At the 10-minute mark of the first half, UNC had already amassed a 32-11 lead while drawing eight fouls and forcing eight turnovers from Michigan State. The Spartans might have finished this game with a rebounding edge, but in the first 10 minutes of play, Carolina pivot players Deon Thompson and Ed Davis destroyed MSU's Goran Suton and Delvon Roe around the rim. It was only when UNC coasted in the second half that the Spartans accumulated minimally meaningful rebounds on missed Tar Heel shots. This was a game when the final stat sheet--except for MSU's 21 turnovers--failed to tell the story. The first 10 minutes told the tale at Ford Field.

Given the home-crowd, home-state, home-dome advantage Michigan State possessed (advantages, it should be said, that really came in handy on Saturday against Connecticut), the consensus view of this game was that North Carolina would have to play really well and hard to earn its fifth national title. Unfortunately for CBS executives and lovers of top-shelf basketball, Michigan State wanted this game too badly, and allowed its level of focus to suffer as a result.
 
This 17-point setback will sting for a bit, but quite frankly, the combination of North Carolina's quality and the magical nature of this season should allow Izzo and his kids to forget their Monday night misstep in fairly short order. While MSU left a lot of points on the floor in Detroit, the Tar Heels banged in a lot of tough shots early on (six of their first seven, to be precise) and showed the sharpness of the elite team they proved to be. Michigan State's best effort would have won if Carolina had fallen fall short of its potential, but given the way UNC started this contest, it would have been hard for Izzo to get his players to the winner's circle, even with a far better performance.
 
When the 2009 Michigan State basketball team is remembered, it will be said that a team with noticeable flaws patched up its weaknesses to grind out late victories in the NCAA Tournament (USC and Kansas) and then max out on defense in big-money ballgames against two giants in the sport (No. 1 seeds Louisville and Connecticut). By not only reaching Detroit, but winning a game once there, the Spartans affirmed the excellence of the MSU program, and allowed Izzo to bask in the glow of his best coaching job in 14 seasons at East Lansing.
 
Not too bad a year of basketball, Spartans one and all. North Carolina is a deserving national champion, but Michigan State can know that in a state where blue-collar values are appreciated, the Big Ten's best basketball team clearly fulfilled its potential.

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