These Two Look Out for No. 1

The end came, not a moment too soon for the reputation of basketball, with Michigan State winning the scrum and the game at the Trans World Dome on Friday night for a trip to the Midwest Regional final.

Spartans 54, Oklahoma Sooners 46, the sport 0.

“It was ugly,” Michigan State guard Mateen Cleaves said. “It’s been an ugly tournament for us, to tell you the truth.”

Tournament?

In many ways, it has been that kind of season for the Spartans, though they have found precision in at least one aspect. They keep winning, they keep apologizing for the assault on the senses.

It’s an intrusion that has now reached historic proportions. Michigan State is in the round of eight for the first time in 20 years, since Magic Johnson, in attendance Friday, led it to the 1979 national championship over Larry Bird’s Indiana State squad. Michigan State has 32 wins, against four losses, tying one of the greatest teams in NCAA history, Indiana ‘76, for the most victories by a Big Ten team.

Michigan State--despite shooting 40%, despite not being able to put away an opponent that shot 28.6% in the second half and 33.3% overall, despite winning the rebound battle by only five against a team with no inside presence, despite Cleaves going three of 14 from the field, despite having one player reach double digits in scoring, despite having three more turnovers than assists--is in the elite eight.

Welcome to its previous four months.

“That’s a good way of putting it,” Coach Tom Izzo said. “It’s hard to define why we won.”

Yet these are the top-seeded Spartans, No. 2 in both the final pre-tournament coaches and media polls, scrapping for victories in a way that befits their blue-collar Lansing, Mich., roots. Consider that of their four losses, one came against Duke, another against Connecticut.

They are of hard hats, and hard heads. That much was proven in the second half, when the Spartans took control of the boards and limited Oklahoma to three offensive rebounds to make sure the Sooners’ numerous three-point weapons would never have the chance to find range, and when Cleaves and Eduardo Najera were involved in a nasty crash.

It happened with 9:34 remaining and Michigan State holding a 36-31 lead. Najera, a 6-foot-8, 235-pound power forward, was setting a pick as the Sooners brought the ball upcourt. Cleaves, 6-2 and 185, slammed into him near the free-throw line in the backcourt.

“I heard the collision. I didn’t see the collision,” said Izzo, on the bench at that end. “It was as good a basketball collision as I’ve seen--or heard.”

Both players crumbled to the floor. Cleaves, the Big Ten player of the year, was on his back for a few minutes, but got up and walked to the bench. A team doctor asked him to count backward from 100 by sevens. Cleaves smiled and said his math wasn’t that good in the first place.

He was OK. Najera, though, had been briefly knocked unconscious, spent several more minutes on the court, some motionless on his stomach, a small pool of blood gathering near the cut on his chin. He eventually woozily walked to the locker room, got six stitches, and went back in to a loud cheer with 4:25 remaining, complete with a bruised breastbone, a concussion, a chipped tooth and the gash.

Oklahoma, only the third 13th-seeded team to reach the Sweet 16, scored only 15 points those final 9 1/2 minutes.

“Our kids were a little shook,” Sooner Coach Kelvin Sampson said. “You could tell that in the huddle.”

Said Izzo: “That helped us a lot, truth be known. . . . I don’t want to win because of an injury, but I’m sure that hurt them some.”

Live scores and updates on the NCAA basketball tournament are available on The Times’ Web site at: https://www.latimes.com/ncaa.