Final Four National Semifinal: Eight great efforts send Michigan State past Connecticut, into title game

 
The members of Michigan State's basketball team probably don't watch 1970s television shows on DVD when they have some spare time. Yet, on a special Semifinal Saturday at the Final Four, the home-state Spartans discovered that, indeed, "Eight Is Enough."
 
Fueled by eight superb performances from a deep and versatile lineup, the local boys from East Lansing delivered the goods in Detroit. Michigan State used its bench to take down Connecticut, 82-73, before a crowd in excess of 72,000 spectators at a raucous Ford Field. The victory puts Tom Izzo's team in Monday night's NCAA championship game against the winner of the second semifinal between Villanova and North Carolina.
 
This game might have been sealed when MSU's Durrell Summers completed an old-fashioned 3-point play to give Sparty a 77-71 lead with exactly one minute left in regulation, but this mild upset of Jim Calhoun's powerful Huskies was built on the backs of many green-shirted bodies. Michigan State needed a blended and balanced attack in order to knock off a team with Connecticut's size and length, and that's exactly what Izzo received on a magical evening for a state and a city that rallied behind the Big Ten champions.
 
Before saluting the eight players who gave Calhoun his first Final Four loss in five tries, it's worth noting that this game started in a manner the Huskies preferred.

When UConn ripped off a 13-4 run to grab a 23-18 lead with 9:39 left in the first half, it appeared that MSU would have a very difficult time reining in the Huskies' trio of big men. Hasheem Thabeet, Jeff Adrien, and Stanley Robinson dominated early around the rim, as the Spartans lacked the ability to deny easy entries into the middle of the lane. Jump hooks, layups and dunks filled the stat sheet for the boys from New England, as the pro-Spartan crowd could do little to change the fact that UConn's frontline looked really nasty for much of the first half. Michigan State had to make things happen on the floor, not in the stands, and it all started with the ability to wear down the Huskies with waves of reinforcements.
 
As the second half progressed, UConn's tall trees couldn't negotiate near the basket with the same fluidity or effectiveness they enjoyed in the first 20 minutes of play. Michigan State racked up 11 steals, most of them after halftime, with a swarming defense that began to clog the lane and force UConn's perimeter players to make difficult decisions. As a result of this shift in the game's dynamics, the Spartans were not only able to get turnovers, but sprint downcourt in transition and beat UConn's defense to the basket. The tempo of this game was appreciably slow, but the Spartans ran selectively on offense to prevent the 7-foot-3 Thabeet from becoming more of a shot-blocking presence. Defense fed offense for the men in green, who used fresher legs and quicker hands to fight past a tired team in the stretch run of this semifinal.
 
Michigan State's "Eight Is Enough" display on Saturday came from a mixture of sources that included perimeter and interior performers. Everything about the way MSU played this game spoke to team-oriented basketball, in marked contrast to the individual talents of Connecticut's brawny physical specimens near the basket.
 
First, one can't deny the five significant scorers Sparty brought to the party in Detroit. Summers, on the strength of his late flourish, including the flashiest highlight of the game--a spectacular dunk over Robinson late in the second half--finished with 10 points. Freshman Korie Lucious threw down 11 points, all in the first half, when many of his teammates were struggling. Kalin Lucas continued his hot shooting at this NCAA Tournament, going 7-of-15 from the field on the way to a 21-point night in the Motor City. Draymond Green scored 8 points, most of them during the second-half push that enabled Sparty to acquire a 62-54 advantage with 7:55 remaining in the game.

As big as those four men were, the biggest piece of point production for MSU came from oft-injured forward Raymar Morgan. The walking MASH unit with a facemask, the same man who had to endure several difficult outings earlier this postseason, rose up to register 18 points for a coach and roster who never stopped believing in him. Morgan's inside-outside game made Michigan State much harder to guard, a key factor in the night's ultimate outcome. 
 
On the defensive end and on the glass, Izzo watched three more warriors emerge. Goran Suton and Delvon Roe might not have lit up the scoreboard (4 points apiece), but they combined for 15 rebounds and 3 blocks to make their team competitive near the rim. After a first half in which Thabeet, Adrien and Robinson usually had their way, Suton and Roe found their footing in the second stanza to stem the tide of UConn-colored momentum.
 
On the perimeter, Travis Walton starred for the Spartans in a defense-first fashion. Sure, Walton tallied just 2 points, but the dynamic defender who smothered Louisville's Terrence Williams in the Midwest Regional final turned the trick again in a main-event matchup with Connecticut point guard A.J. Price. By holding Price--a lethal all-around scorer from all places on the floor--to a 5-of-20 shooting performance, Walton ensured that the Huskies remained confined to the interior for their scoring punch. When MSU's big men began to react better near the basket, Walton's perimeter play against Price prevented Connecticut from being anything more than one-dimensional.
 
Durrell Summers. Korie Lucious.
 
Kalin Lucas. Draymond Green. Raymar Morgan.
 
Goran Suton. Delvon Roe. Travis Walton.
 
Eight magnificent Michigan State men enabled a smaller and less imposing team to play 8-on-5 basketball against the highly-touted Huskies. Because of a deep bench and better balance, the best team defeated a UConn roster with more NBA-ready players. That's become the Tom Izzo way in East Lansing, and with one more primo performance in the Monday night spotlight, the Big Ten champions will claim a much more valuable crown.

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