Sharky
2009-04-05 04:07:28 UTC
Poor 'ol "Big East"... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
AP wrote:
| *Detroit Free Press
|
| DETROIT -- Hey, Connecticut. The Louisville Cardinals called.
|They want the looks on their faces back.
| This looked so familiar, didn't it? A Big East team, a No. 1
|seed, supposedly more athletic than Michigan State, longer, quicker,
|more likely to pick the right Powerball numbers, everything. And
|here came Michigan State, keeping it tight in the first half,
|handcuffing Connecticut in the second.
| The Huskies could not have looked more frustrated if they
|entered a contest to fold fitted sheets. Michigan State does that to
|people. So many moments stand out in this one, so many players, but
|let's talk about one: Raymar Morgan. He is emblematic of the whole.
| Morgan had five days to think about this game, and it was
|hard to know if that was good news or not. Would he clear his mind
|or fill it with lighter fluid? Would UConn center Hasheem Thabeet
|grow to 12 feet tall in Morgan's mind?
| Seventy-one seconds into the game, Morgan drove to the hoop
|... and Thabeet blocked his shot. A week ago, that would have sent
|Morgan into an emotional tailspin -- you could just see him alone in
|his room, lights off, listening to break-up songs. Not Saturday.
| He went right back to the basket and scored.
| Morgan broke his nose last week, and he played part of the
|Louisville game with a mask, part without. He looked lost the whole
|time.
| Saturday, he kept his mask and lost his shell.
| What happened?
| "I just got some advice from some people I haven't
|talked to in a while," said Morgan, who said the people were
|family members but declined to name them. "It was huge. Also,
|me and Coach had a heart-to-heart talk, which really helped."
| Morgan looked focused from the morning walk-through on. At
|the pregame meal, assistant coach Dwayne Stephens told coach Tom
|Izzo he thought they'd get a different Ray this time. The real Ray.
| "I think so, too," Izzo said, according to
|Stephens.
| Here was the real Ray, dunking to make it 71-60 with 3:18
|left. At that point, Jim Calhoun asked for the check. It was a
|simple play, an easy two, but that's Morgan at his best: He gets the
|easy twos. He gets a whole bunch of easy twos.
| This was a reminder of how good Morgan can be. And just
|think: Michigan State basically made the Final Four without him. In
|the three previous games, he looked like he was ineligible to score.
| So we can talk about MSU's toughness, the defense down the
|stretch, the home crowd and the coaching genius of Tom Izzo. That's
|fine. We should talk about all that.
| But let's get one thing straight.
| Michigan State has a lot of very good basketball players.
|How that got lost in the shuffle, I don't know. But nobody in the
|country is deeper. That was evident if you watched Morgan struggle
|in wins over Southern Cal, Kansas and Louisville, and it was obvious
|on Saturday.
| Stat of the day? How about this: Goran Suton, the Most
|Outstanding Player of the Midwest Regional, scored four points. Yet
|MSU scored 82 and won anyway.
| In the circle of hype leading up to the game, Michigan State
|was given less of a chance each day. If the NCAA had postponed the
|game until next Wednesday, the Spartans would not have been allowed
|to enter Ford Field.
| I do love big-sporting-event hype. Three weeks ago, there
|was talk that if the Spartans won the Big Ten tournament, they would
|get a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament -- ahead of Connecticut.
| But by tip-off Saturday, it was as though UConn had 17
|players overqualified for the NBA and MSU had a bunch of walk-ons.
| The reality is that UConn probably does have more
|NBA-caliber players than MSU, more length, and more athleticism. But
|not a lot more. And nobody in the country is deeper.
| Very few teams have a guy like Morgan, 6-8 with an NBA body
|and feet that appear to be made of SuperBalls. Fewer still can win
|without a guy like that.
| The Spartans proved they could do it.
| Now they don't have to.
| ------
| (c) 2009, Detroit Free Press.
| Visit the Freep, the World Wide Web site of the Detroit Free
|Press, at http://www.freep.com.
| Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
| ----------
| PHOTOS (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099):
| FINAL FOUR
| For reprints, email ***@permissionsgroup.com, call
|800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write
|to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303,
|Glenview, IL 60025, USA. 1071722
| A service of YellowBrix, Inc.
|
AP wrote:
| *Detroit Free Press
|
| DETROIT -- Hey, Connecticut. The Louisville Cardinals called.
|They want the looks on their faces back.
| This looked so familiar, didn't it? A Big East team, a No. 1
|seed, supposedly more athletic than Michigan State, longer, quicker,
|more likely to pick the right Powerball numbers, everything. And
|here came Michigan State, keeping it tight in the first half,
|handcuffing Connecticut in the second.
| The Huskies could not have looked more frustrated if they
|entered a contest to fold fitted sheets. Michigan State does that to
|people. So many moments stand out in this one, so many players, but
|let's talk about one: Raymar Morgan. He is emblematic of the whole.
| Morgan had five days to think about this game, and it was
|hard to know if that was good news or not. Would he clear his mind
|or fill it with lighter fluid? Would UConn center Hasheem Thabeet
|grow to 12 feet tall in Morgan's mind?
| Seventy-one seconds into the game, Morgan drove to the hoop
|... and Thabeet blocked his shot. A week ago, that would have sent
|Morgan into an emotional tailspin -- you could just see him alone in
|his room, lights off, listening to break-up songs. Not Saturday.
| He went right back to the basket and scored.
| Morgan broke his nose last week, and he played part of the
|Louisville game with a mask, part without. He looked lost the whole
|time.
| Saturday, he kept his mask and lost his shell.
| What happened?
| "I just got some advice from some people I haven't
|talked to in a while," said Morgan, who said the people were
|family members but declined to name them. "It was huge. Also,
|me and Coach had a heart-to-heart talk, which really helped."
| Morgan looked focused from the morning walk-through on. At
|the pregame meal, assistant coach Dwayne Stephens told coach Tom
|Izzo he thought they'd get a different Ray this time. The real Ray.
| "I think so, too," Izzo said, according to
|Stephens.
| Here was the real Ray, dunking to make it 71-60 with 3:18
|left. At that point, Jim Calhoun asked for the check. It was a
|simple play, an easy two, but that's Morgan at his best: He gets the
|easy twos. He gets a whole bunch of easy twos.
| This was a reminder of how good Morgan can be. And just
|think: Michigan State basically made the Final Four without him. In
|the three previous games, he looked like he was ineligible to score.
| So we can talk about MSU's toughness, the defense down the
|stretch, the home crowd and the coaching genius of Tom Izzo. That's
|fine. We should talk about all that.
| But let's get one thing straight.
| Michigan State has a lot of very good basketball players.
|How that got lost in the shuffle, I don't know. But nobody in the
|country is deeper. That was evident if you watched Morgan struggle
|in wins over Southern Cal, Kansas and Louisville, and it was obvious
|on Saturday.
| Stat of the day? How about this: Goran Suton, the Most
|Outstanding Player of the Midwest Regional, scored four points. Yet
|MSU scored 82 and won anyway.
| In the circle of hype leading up to the game, Michigan State
|was given less of a chance each day. If the NCAA had postponed the
|game until next Wednesday, the Spartans would not have been allowed
|to enter Ford Field.
| I do love big-sporting-event hype. Three weeks ago, there
|was talk that if the Spartans won the Big Ten tournament, they would
|get a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament -- ahead of Connecticut.
| But by tip-off Saturday, it was as though UConn had 17
|players overqualified for the NBA and MSU had a bunch of walk-ons.
| The reality is that UConn probably does have more
|NBA-caliber players than MSU, more length, and more athleticism. But
|not a lot more. And nobody in the country is deeper.
| Very few teams have a guy like Morgan, 6-8 with an NBA body
|and feet that appear to be made of SuperBalls. Fewer still can win
|without a guy like that.
| The Spartans proved they could do it.
| Now they don't have to.
| ------
| (c) 2009, Detroit Free Press.
| Visit the Freep, the World Wide Web site of the Detroit Free
|Press, at http://www.freep.com.
| Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
| ----------
| PHOTOS (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099):
| FINAL FOUR
| For reprints, email ***@permissionsgroup.com, call
|800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write
|to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303,
|Glenview, IL 60025, USA. 1071722
| A service of YellowBrix, Inc.
|