Spartans Would Be Thrilled to Crash Blue Devils’ Party

Of course they hear it.

“Quite a bit,” Michigan State forward Jason Klein said.

That Duke can’t be beaten.

“If you watch any TV, that’s what you hear,” Klein said.

That the Spartans are merely in the semifinals of the Duke Invitational.

“I heard that one too,” guard Charlie Bell said. “They said that on ESPN.”

Hardly favorites in the eyes of many to reach the Final Four, despite being made the top-seeded team in the Midwest Regional, the Spartans have only started to really understand what it is to be overlooked at an event everyone is looking at. Life as the hors d’oeuvres at the Blue Devil Ball, a coronation that gets underway tonight at Tropicana Field, after Connecticut and Ohio State meet to see who gets the honor of being the last team to be thrown under the steamroller.

Or so they hear.

It comes even from parts of East Lansing, Mich., where fellow students and professors offered advice and best wishes on what to do with Duke, some coming across more like this: “Maybe the power will go out just as the warden gives the signal.”

So look who showed Friday for a final practice. The guys with the wire cutters.

“Everybody says Duke is untouchable,” Bell said. “But we know they can be touched.”

Michigan State knows because it was one of the few teams to so much as leave a fingerprint on the Blue Devils, who lost to Cincinnati by two points on Nov. 28 at the Great Alaska Shootout but have since won a school-record 31 games in a row, with the last 13 coming by an average margin of 29 points.

The Spartans had their chance the very next game, the Dec. 2 Great Eight in Chicago. They just didn’t have much of a chance after Duke broke to a 17-2 lead. Michigan State rallied to within 58-55 with 6:08 remaining, but William Avery’s three-point basket recaptured the momentum for the Blue Devils, who won, 73-67.

The good news for the Spartans is that they won the second half, 37-34, and hammered Duke on the boards, and they are a better team since then.

The bad news for the Spartans is that so is Duke.

What it means tonight is that Michigan State has something to grab on to for confidence, something beyond the misplaced hope that every other Blue Devil victim has had.

Michigan State also has toughness, on the court as a group that can control the boards in the (rare) event that Duke goes cold, and also within as the team that wasn’t supposed to be able to handle the experience and aura of Kentucky in the Midwest final. And then: Spartans 73, Mystique 66.

“Michigan State’s a tough team,” said Michael Redd, who will play for Ohio State in the first game tonight. “They beat us this year at Michigan State. They only lost by six to Duke the first time. I don’t know why people are wigging out.”

In the interest of time:

* Duke is shooting 51.8% and getting offense inside (Elton Brand) and outside (Trajan Langdon, Avery), and the Spartans don’t have the weapons to outscore the Blue Devils.

* Duke is allowing opponents to shoot 38.8%, its best showing since 1959-60, so the Spartans’ perceived advantage on the offensive boards, after the 25-5 advantage in the first meeting, may have to become the bulk of the offense.

* Duke is a massive favorite, tonight and to win it all, and still appears focused on a fresh goal. Not possible? Consider that no current Blue Devil has even played in a Final Four before, let alone won a championship.

“We certainly don’t feel like we’re invincible,” Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “I don’t think any of our players or coaching staff have ever portrayed that mood, that opinion. We understand we’re a fairly young team.

“Of our top eight players, five are sophomores and one’s a freshman. So with that level of experience, I think we can lose to anybody. We just have played so hard this year and so passionately that we haven’t lost except that one time. And that’s been a strength of our team.”

Resolve in the face of being overwhelming favorites.

“Our minds have been on this tournament and we want to worry about what is happening now,” said reserve forward Corey Maggette, the freshman. “We don’t really listen to those types of things. Everyone is expecting us to run through this tournament. We don’t see it that way. We still have to play 40 minutes of basketball tomorrow. And if we win, we have to play another 40 minutes after that.”

Added sophomore Shane Battier: “We haven’t been overconfident since Day 1, so there’s no reason we should be now.”

Not even in the Duke Invitational, apparently.

“You can’t get upset because they’ve earned the respect they deserve,” Michigan State forward Andre Hutson said. “You just have to turn off the TV sometimes and put away the papers and concentrate on what you have to do.”

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How They Compare

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MSU Duke Record 33-4 36-1 vs. NCAA field-x 12-4 9-1 vs. Sweet 16-x 5-3 6-0 Home 14-0 14-0 Road 9-3 11-0 Neutral 10-1 11-1 Avg. Pts. 72.0 92.9 Opp. Avg. Pts. 59.3 67.0 Scoring Margin 12.7 25.9 Starters scoring 44.0 67.4 Bench scoring 28.0 25.5 FG Pct. .477 .518 Opp. FG Pct. .425 .388 3-Pt. FG Pct. .344 .399 Opp. 3-Pt. FG Pct. .319 .302 3-Pt. FG-Game 4.5 7.6 Opp. 3-Pt. FG-Game 4.5 5.0 FT Pct. .736 .708 Reb. Avg. 36.0 42.4 Opp. Reb. Avg. 26.5 33.0 Rebound Margin 9.5 9.4 Turnover Diff. 1.4 3.2 Ast. Avg. 15.0 16.6 Steals Avg. 7.9 9.2 Blocks Avg. 2.7 6.4

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x-excluding NCAA tournament games