Spartans to Wrestle Gators

They played a Final Four game for the ages Saturday night. Ages 8-14, mostly.

Michigan State shot 34.8% and had four assists and 14 turnovers, and that was the winning team. Wisconsin had one player score more than six points. The first half, for both sides, was more blackjack than basketball, each, by all appearances, striving to not break 21.

The offenses grinded like a Big Ten Saturday in the fall instead of spring and the scoreboard idled, stuck in neutral in more ways than avoiding a rooting interest, before the Spartans claimed a 53-41 victory, overcoming the Badgers’ feel-good postseason run and 24 plunges off tackle by Ron Dayne.

This one would have been big at the World Cup. Before 43,116 in the RCA Dome, though, it passed for earning a spot in the Monday night the championship game and the Spartans’ chance to win an NCAA title for the first time since Magic Johnson’s 1979 team, after losing to Duke in the semifinals a year ago in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Morris Peterson attended his grandmother’s funeral, rejoined Michigan State on Friday, then scored 16 of his game-high 20 points in the second half to spark victory, pointing to the heavens after one basket. Wisconsin Coach Dick Bennett sounded afterward like a man contemplating retirement, after the Badgers had gone from a sixth-place conference finish and a No. 8 seed in the West Regional to the Final Four for the first time since 1941.

If this was goodbye, he deserved a better send-off than this, a game in which his team had a scoreless stretch of 6:15 in the first half and only twice got baskets on consecutive possessions. A game, worst of all, where the Badgers got exactly the kind of halfcourt tempo they wanted and still couldn’t capitalize.

Michigan State point guard Mateen Cleaves made one of seven shots and had one assist and four turnovers, and shooting guard Charlie Bell was one of nine, and the Spartans still won by 12.

Michigan State never got close to the transition game it prefers, and still controlled most of the way.

Michigan State once went 12:27 without a field goal, and still led by as many as 16 points in the second half.

Off Wisconsin. The Badgers got hammered on the boards, 39-19, and allowed the opponent 14 offensive rebounds. Forward Mark Vershaw, their leading scorer coming in, went two of 11 from the field and clumsily looked like he had never before played the post. Guard Jon Bryant, who scored 18 points in the previous game against Purdue and 16 in the Sweet 16 victory over Louisiana State, got two points and all of five shots in 27 minutes, making one.

The fourth meeting between the teams in the last six weeks ended like the two from the Big Ten regular season and the one in the conference tournament. A Spartan win.

“Well, Michigan State is clearly a superior team,” said Bennett, who had virtually acknowledged as much earlier in the week, “and showed that today. We knew that we had to get back on defense, and we were able to do that. We knew we had to make them earn everything they got offensively, and we did that. We knew we had to keep them off the glass, and we were unable to do that. Nor were we able to break them down.

“We couldn’t score inside and they just wouldn’t give us any looks outside. So it’s a tribute to one really great defensive team, Michigan State, knowing what has to be done. They are superb.”

There were other issues. Andy Kowske, Wisconsin’s best rebounder, got two early fouls and lasted only six minutes in the first half and 20 in all, getting shut out on the boards. That muscle greatly eliminated, the rest of the Badgers shied away from the mosh-pit style that evolved. Bennett, doing nothing to hide his displeasure on this front, said he lifted another big man because Vershaw would not dig in and set a screen to spring Bryant for an open shot.

It all came in a game in which Michigan State, the clear favorite for the title among the four who made it this far, was entirely beatable. Not that that’s anything new--the Spartans, No. 2 in the final regular-season poll and No. 1 in the Midwest Regional, had to come from behind in the second half in their three previous games to beat Iowa State, Syracuse and Utah. But this was different.

This was 25% shooting and a 19-17--19-17!--lead at halftime.

Peterson, with several different, and smaller, Badgers being sent at him in shifts of man-to-man defense that had been the staple of Wisconsin success, made one of his first five shots, Also, the Spartans had wasted most of an early 11-point lead, managing only two free throws in the 10 minutes before heading to the locker room.

“The players were actually a little down at halftime,” Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said. “That’s why we didn’t have our normal halftime. We kind of had a little kiss-and-hug halftime, because we [the coaches] didn’t feel it was the time to get after them.”

The normal halftime in this situation is Cleaves going fire-and-brimstone and climbing down someone’s throat. That path having been rejected, the Spartans instead regrouped, then opened the second half with an 18-5 run. Theye were never seriously threatened again.

“I just think it’s [that] we started playing with a sense of urgency,” Peterson said. “We started realizing it could be our last 20 minutes if we didn’t pick it up.”

They picked it up enough to explode for 34 points in the second half, 10 better than Wisconsin, and shoot 45.5%, while Cleaves and Bell allowed Bryant all of three shots in 14 minutes. That took care of the Badgers, leaving only one more task at hand.

A championship for the ages.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GAME 1 BREAKDOWN

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Wisconsin TALE OF THE TAPE Michigan St. 41 Points 53 20 Rebounds 42 8 Assists 4 11 Turnovers 14 .349 Field Goal Percentage .348 .308 Three-Point Percentage .143 .636 Free-Throw Percentage .826

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