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Friday, March 23
Gonzaga won't sneak up on Spartans
By Pat Forde
Special to ESPN.com
The clear temptation is to label the South Regional the Spartan Invitational: the defending national champs, plus three teams just thankful to make the NCAAs and pick up their complimentary warmups.
|  | | With guys like David Thomas and Zach Randolph, the Spartans have their eyes on another Final Four. |
That's also an open invitation to make a fool of yourself. And Tom Izzo is no fool.
Izzo is, in fact, a world-class worrier. It helps make him the premier coach he is. Worried coaches prepare more thoroughly and can impart a more legitimate motivational fear into their players.
Michigan State will be ready for Gonzaga. And, if it comes to it, ready for either Penn State or Temple.
Doesn't matter that State is the top seed and the Other Three come to Atlanta with an average seed of 10. Doesn't matter that State has been beaten just four times and the Other Three have lost a combined 28 games. Doesn't matter that State has been to two straight Final Fours and the Other Three are 0 for the last 43 years.
Those are just numbers. Fact is, you don't have to be a Tom Izzo-level worrier to see caution signs all over Atlanta.
The next team that underestimates chronically under-seeded Gonzaga in March would have to be brain-dead. Or Tennessee, which is pretty much the same thing.
No coach alive wants to see Temple's nightmarishly unorthodox zone defense come tournament time. Ask Florida's Billy Donovan, who saw his machine-gun Gators held to 54 points in a second-round blowout loss, tying their lowest production in Donovan's five years in Gainesville.
And Penn State? The Spartans already have played the Nittany Lions three times this year – including an upset loss in the Big Ten Tournament. Nobody would be more familiar with Izzo's gazillion set plays, physical defensive tenets and marauding boardwork than the Nits.
So, no, you will not convince Michigan State that this attempt will be any easier than its last two forays to the Four.
Both were supreme manhood checks.
In 1999, the Spartans nearly lost Mateen Cleaves' cranium in a horrific collision with Oklahoma's Eduardo Najera, but survived 54-46 in the regional semifinals. Then, in the Eight, they doggedly clawed back from an immediate 13-point deficit to eliminate defending national champion Kentucky.
Last year, Michigan State had to rally from 15 down to swamp Syracuse in the second half of the regional semis. Its viciously contested regional final win over Iowa State turned out to be the de facto national championship game. The Final Four was easy after surviving the Cyclones.
This Michigan State team is missing some of the familiar components of those teams, attempting to fill key spots with talented freshmen. But the Spartans' calling cards remain the same: defense, rebounding and unshakable faith in their seniors.
The stats from State's 16-point win over Fresno State were classic Izzo: a plus-16 edge in rebounding, 50 percent shooting from the field, and the Bulldogs were held to 35.3 percent shooting. Championship-caliber stats.
"I think we put something together (against Fresno), I really do," Izzo said. "That's the best we've executed on offense, and our defense has been rock solid."
But the third component of IzzBall was evident as well. State got 14 rebounds from wing player David Thomas and 13 points from backup post man Aloysius Anagonye -- a pair of overlooked seniors, rising to the occasion.
Some people thought this team would be dead without Napoleonic point guard Cleaves, deluxe shooter Morris Peterson and underappreciated A.J. Granger. But heck, some people thought the 2000 Spartans would suffer without the guidance of redoubtable big man Antonio Smith. This only goes to prove that trickle-down leadership is alive and well in East Lansing.
This Spartans team has five seniors. In each of their lockers in The Breslin Center hangs a sign enumerating their leadership duties for the year. Much is expected of the veterans in this program, and darned if they don't keep dragging their team deep into March.
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SEMIFINALS SKINNY
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No. 1 Michigan State
vs. No. 12 Gonzaga
Friday, 7:38 p.m.
The Zags' fearless and creative inside-outside duo of Casey Calvary and Dan Dickau meets what looks like the stickiest team defense still playing. In the past three NCAA tournaments, Gonzaga is 7-0 scoring more than 70 points and 0-2 scoring fewer. Michigan State has only allowed one opponent to score more than 70 in its past 13 NCAA games over three seasons.
No. 7 Penn State
vs. No. 11 Temple
Friday, 10:03 p.m.
This could be a serious tempo duel, with the Owls looking for a deliberate pace and the Nittany Lions preferring to get up and down. The Sweet Sixteen is familiar territory for Temple coach John Chaney and terra incognita for Penn State's Jerry Dunn -- who was hearing some grumbling heading into this season. Chaney knows how to make regional finals (he's advanced to four of them) but it's the next step that has proved trickiest.
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Battle of the backcourts
Welcome to BackcourtMania. This will be a guard's game, if ever there was one.
Neither coach is afraid to let his guards take over -- and take a few bad shots along the way.
John Chaney's best Temple teams - and this has steadily rounded into one of them - have thrived with ball-monopolizing perimeter players who methodically worked the shot clock and then improvised to score points. From Mark Macon and Nate Blackwell to Aaron McKie and Eddie Jones to Pepe Sanchez and Mark Karcher -- and now to Quincy Wadley and Lynn Greer -- it has become almost as much a Chaney staple as the zone D.
"Greer and Wadley took over the game," Florida's Donovan said after watching the tandem combine for 44 of Temple's 75 points. Wadley had scored 27 the game before, in an easy win over Texas, and Greer is 17 for 17 from the foul line in the tournament.
On Jerry Dunn's Penn State side are the Brothers Crispin, Joe and John. Their motto: If It Feels Like Leather, Shoot it. If senior Crispin Joe doesn't jack up 20 shots Friday -- a few of them with his feet set, even -- then he must not be feeling well. The brothers' Georgia Dome shooting range could challenge even the far-flung Temple zone, which is advised to pick up the Crispins in Buckhead and never lose sight of them.
Joe Crispin went 7 for 21 in Penn State's upset of North Carolina Sunday, but he insists that several of those catch-and-fire possessions were attempts to get the stolid Tar Heels playing faster than they would like.
"The thing I tried to focus on was picking up the pace. We felt we could wear them down if we got the tempo up," Crispin said, and he was right. Penn State outscored the Heels 18-6 in the final five-plus minutes to win the game.
One thing to throw out: Penn State beat Temple 66-60 in early December, part of the Owls' miserable seven-game losing streak. Wadley was hurt then, and Temple bears little resemblance to that team. It comes into this game having won nine straight, magically whisking itself from the bubble to the Sweet Sixteen.
This is terra incognita for Dunn and Penn State, which continues to forestall spring football talk in Happy Valley. For Chaney, it is distressingly familiar terrain: he's made four Elite Eight appearances, but has never advanced to the Final Four.
Around the South
Tuesday or Wednesday could be D-Day for Rick Pitino and the University of Louisville. The Cardinals have been sitting on pins and needles while Pitino continues to grapple with the concept of going from coaching Kentucky to Louisville -- albeit with a four-year professional buffer in between. People close to the situation on both sides agreed Monday night that it was hopeless trying to predict what Pitino would do.
South Carolina's search for a replacement to Eddie Fogler could start (rather dreamily) with Kentucky's Tubby Smith. Hard to believe Smith would leave Lexington for Columbia, but he has not yet agreed to a contract extension that has been broached by Kentucky athletic director Larry Ivy. Most Smith speculation has centered on the NBA.
Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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