It Has Been a Spartan Existence

From Bedrock with love:

In search of a storied future, the Michigan State Spartans have at least conquered the part about embracing the past, finding guidance and support from Magic Johnson and then reaching back further still, as if a champion from the ‘70s isn’t prehistoric enough to collegians.

Flintstones. Meet the Flintstones. Antonio Smith, Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson and Charlie Bell all came from the same Michigan city, got Flint tattoos to show it, then got the nickname. The school band joined in soon after, blasting the theme song at games.

One problem. If it was one big yabba-dabba-doo time, coming as the Spartans built a 33-4 record and a 22-game winning streak that has carried them to the Final Four, it was also part of their other image.

The offense from the Stone Age.

The bricks they shoot.

“It’s probably not as aesthetically pleasing as some of the glamour teams,” Oklahoma Coach Kelvin Sampson said. “They’re like a blacksmith. They’ll pound you.”

It’s not as though the Spartans will insist on a brutish halfcourt game. That is simply what they end up with if the shots don’t fall, which happens often enough.

At that point, they’ll send as many as four guys to crash the boards. Bell, the 6-foot-3 shooting guard, led the team in rebounding five times, and that was even with a dependable inside presence like Smith.

The road to St. Petersburg hasn’t exactly helped the image problem.

The Spartans were 4-3 in early December. Granted, all the losses were to eventual elite eight teams--by a point at Temple, by six against Duke in Chicago, by 14 at Connecticut--but that was also after blowing a double-digit lead in the second half against the Owls and after falling behind the Blue Devils, the opponent Saturday, by 17 out of the gate.

Besides, and most noticeable, Cleaves, their leader, was struggling. Teammates and coaches and friends told him he looked as though he wasn’t having fun. He heard them. But the biggest impact didn’t come until a Spartan student manager was sent to get Cleaves before a game against Michigan. Magic wanted to talk to him.

The star of the last Michigan State team to reach the Final Four and the star of what would become the next one talked for only about 30 seconds. Actually, Johnson talked for about 30 seconds. Cleaves listened, heard the same things about giving high fives and smiling on the court, with only one difference.

“That’s Magic Johnson telling you that,” Cleaves said. “Everything he tells me, I listen to him.”

Cleaves took off from there, the Spartans in tow. They have lost only once the rest of the way, at Wisconsin on Jan. 6 as the Badgers shot 65.2% in the second half and Michigan State shot 29.6%. The Spartans have won the next 22. Most notable among those was 73-66 victory over Kentucky last Sunday in the Midwest Regional final in St. Louis.

“Our offense is somehow down and dirty,” said Cleaves, the coaches’ choice for Big Ten Conference player of the year. “We just get the job done and get the ball in the basket. Sometimes the plays don’t always work. We have some great offensive rebounders. I guess at times we do have an ugly offense.

“People look at us a little different. . . . We kind of play the old-fashioned Big Ten football. We just smash mouth.”

Said Smith: “We’re just trying to stick with the way we know. We’re not out there playing dirty or anything. We’re just physical. It may seem dirty to a lot of people, but we’re just out there playing our brand of ball. I mean, we don’t say anything about teams dunking the ball, so why should they say something about us banging people around down low?”

Coach Tom Izzo wonders the same thing.

“We’ve been called so many things all year that it really doesn’t bother me anymore,” he said. “We’ve shot the ball not as well as I think any one of us would like, and yet we’ve shot the ball about the same percentage as Kentucky or a lot of other teams that are in this tournament.”

He shrugs.

“I guess I’m kind of tired of apologizing for what we do because we’ve had a lot of great games this year where we shot the ball very well from the three or we shot the ball different ways,” Izzo said. “I still say you’ve got to remember what it’s all about. It’s about winning games, and that’s what we’ve done. And that’s really all I have to say about it.”

* LORENZO ROMAR: Pepperdine coach going to Saint Louis. Page 10

* REFEREES: Experiencing March Madness of their own. Page 10

SATURDAY

CONNECTICUT vs. OHIO STATE, 2:30 p.m.

DUKE vs. MICHIGAN STATE, 5 p.m.

TV: Channel 2