Midwest Regional | Edge: Michigan State-UConn
INDIANAPOLIS -- When beauty plays the beast, don't be a jackass and get fooled by the beauty.
Louisville plays a beautiful brand of basketball -- dunking and pressing and hoisting 3-pointers. If you had a daughter, you would want her to grow up to be Louisville, and I don't mean that as an insult to Louisville basketball. Louisville has long eyelashes and a pretty smile. Louisville winks at you, and your heart melts.
Michigan State doesn't wink. Michigan State snarls. Michigan State defends and rebounds and runs through screens, not around them. When the Spartans played Louisville on Sunday for the Midwest Regional title, there was only one beauty on the court at Lucas Oil Stadium, and that was Louisville.
Michigan State was the beast.
And when beauty plays the beast, go with the beast. Every time.
Maybe someday I'll learn.
Maybe that day is today, because I just watched a blowout, and it wasn't the blowout I anticipated. Second-seeded Michigan State beat the hell out of No. 1 overall seed Louisville, figuratively but also literally, winning 64-52 to earn a spot in next week's Final Four at nearby Detroit.
Michigan State won because it was uglier than Louisville, and don't you dare be offended, Michigan State fans. Your team is what it is, and you know it. And judging from the annual turnout at the Breslin Center on campus in East Lansing, Mich., you love it. As well you should. Your team plays hard and mean, and your team wins. It wins ugly, but that's an embodiment of coach Tom Izzo, who is short and squatty and not about to win a beauty contest. But he has one national championship, and on Sunday he led his fifth team in 14 seasons to the Final Four.
"He wants us to be the toughest team," Spartans guard Travis Walton said of Izzo. "If you want to get a championship, you have to do those type of things."
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| Another regional championship trophy belongs to Tom Izzo's Spartans. (Getty Images) |
"It was a grind 'em game," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said. "They're probably a little bit better at that style than we are."
Pitino coaches a much prettier style. Pitino has designer suits and perfect hair, and he has a team to match. Earl Clark is everything you want in an NBA player. So is Terrence Williams. They're beautiful.
But beautiful wasn't going to beat Michigan State on Sunday. To beat the Spartans, a team had better be tough of mind and body, and Louisville was neither. Louisville couldn't convert its offense. Hell, Louisville couldn't run its offense.
In the Louisville locker room afterward, next to red-eyed Andre McGee and shocked-silent Edgar Sosa, Williams explained why he took just one shot from the floor in the first half, an air ball from 3-point range.
"I couldn't get a shot," said Williams, who had five points. "We got bodied off screens, and we never got into our offense. I finally took a few shots in the second half, but I forced some of them, too. They're a more physical team."
Roughly 90 percent of the crowd was red, but Michigan State never let the Louisville crowd, or the Louisville team, get into gear. The Spartans held Louisville to zero points in transition, a shocking statistic against a team that presses and forces turnovers and often turns games into track meets. The Sweet 16 game against Arizona was a track meet, and Louisville lapped the Wildcats. The Cardinals scored 103 points, or 51.5 per half.
They had 52 against Michigan State. All game. When the game was over, the crowd was gone and Pitino was disgusted. Michigan State called timeout with 39 seconds left to pull its regulars, and Louisville's players wandered toward Pitino, who was crouched in front of his bench. Pitino didn't look at them. Didn't say a word. After a few seconds, the Cardinals wandered back onto the court.
It was worse out there. The Spartans ambushed Louisville with senior center Goran Suton, who averages 9.8 points per game but found soft spots inside the Louisville zone and an enormous empty spot just outside the zone. He made seven of 10 shots, including three straight 3-pointers -- after making just 14 all season -- and had 17 of Michigan State's 30 points in the first half. Suton didn't do much in the second half, finishing with 19 points, but sophomore guard Durrell Summers picked it up from there. Summers scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half, including a pair of 3-pointers that broke the game open.
Suton and Summers were the offensive keys to the game for Michigan State, but the Spartans didn't beat Louisville with their offense. Michigan State won with rebounding (a 37-29 edge) and roughhousing, getting whistled for 22 fouls, seven more than Louisville. Michigan State fans noticed the foul discrepancy, especially as the Cardinals were going to the foul line for most of the second half, but Izzo didn't seem to mind. He even nodded after one offensive foul on the Spartans, acknowledging the call was good.
Izzo didn't need the refs' help to beat Louisville. He had the tougher team, and the tougher team was going to win this game. Michigan State is tough because of Izzo, who stomps his foot when he wants his players' attention and screams when he wants their ear and responded to one first-half turnover by Suton by running full speed from the bench toward the court, stopping at the boundary like a dog wearing an electric collar. And then he spittled something R-rated at Suton.
And then Suton went back onto the court and started to score. And rebound. And Izzo didn't have to yell at Suton again. He really didn't have to yell at anybody any more. Michigan State was playing the way Izzo wants them to play. I think it's ugly. He thinks it's beautiful. He's probably right.
