That’s Not an Illusion: No. 1 Will Play No. 2

The No. 1-seeded team plays the No. 2 team tonight in the Midwest Regional final. Sure. And the Big Three automakers are endorsing the Japanese 2000s.

Word that this has become a wide-open NCAA tournament did not reach these parts in time for that Central Connecticut State-St. Bonaventure matchup, so Michigan State will go ahead and play Iowa State for the Final Four berth and leave those real showdowns to the other regions.

No. 1 Michigan State is the unquestioned local favorite, playing 80 miles from home, and the favorite, period, to win the national championship in Indianapolis. The Spartans have done their best to downplay any talk of a massive homecourt advantage at the Palace of Auburn Hills, then came out to find the custom-painted court ringed in green.

Maybe for kicks, or just maybe because they have been more workmanlike than awesome, they went out and fell behind Syracuse by 13 points in Thursday night’s first half. So Mateen Cleaves jumped down his teammates’ throats at halftime, the Spartans briefly went down by 14, then outscored the Orangemen, 49-18, the rest of the way for a 75-58 victory.

Michigan State (29-7) also played from behind the previous game, down six to Utah with 17:50 remaining in the second round at Cleveland, before dropping the hammer with a 27-7 charge, so this has gone from minor nuisance to trend.

“You do get concerned when you’re down in a game like that,” said Cleaves, the point guard and emotional leader. “But we’ve been in those situations before and that’s helped us out a lot.”

Coach Tom Izzo, seeing the direction all these questions were going during the Friday news conference, jumped in.

“We are playing some good people,” he reminded.

So it must be the expectations, obviously greater in the home state than anywhere.

“I take it as a compliment,” Izzo said, “but I think we’ve gotten a little bit crazy on the other side of the coin.”

Iowa State, meanwhile, arrives with a 32-4 record and 10 consecutive victories, most recently the 80-56 pounding of UCLA two days ago, even as All-America forward Marcus Fizer had only 16 points, seven below his season-long average. That came after the Cyclones beat Auburn by 19.

This is already the school’s most successful tournament run since the field was expanded from eight teams. Another win tonight puts them in the Final Four for the first time since 1944.