INDIANAPOLIS -- Have some mercy on Michigan State's players. Let them find a pick-up game. There has to be one going on somewhere in this hoops-crazy city. Let them run and gun and purify their basketball souls.

They sat in their locker room Saturday night, some still talking with reporters, some watching on television as Florida raced to an early lead over North Carolina. Many of them needed the basketball equivalent of a shower after their own Final Four game, a plodding 53-41 victory over Wisconsin in which nobody shot straight.

	Related Links: GameCenter Peterson carries Michigan State past Wisconsin Complete March Mayhem coverage March Mayhem Central Audio: MSU's Morris Peterson dedicates the win to his grandmother Real | Windows Media Audio: MSU's Mateen Cleaves credits tough defense and Peterson for the win Real | Windows Media Forum: Will Michigan State win it all?
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Quick. Who scored more points? The Badgers in either of their Rose Bowl appearances the past two seasons or the Badgers on Saturday night?

It was the basketball team. But not by much compared to a 38-31 football victory over UCLA two seasons ago.

"Now I know I won't have to play them again," Spartans senior Mateen Cleaves said. "That's a good thing. I'm just happy I don't have to face them again. Ever."

Cleaves has one game remaining in his college career, and it will be for the national championship. One game to put himself on the same level as Magic Johnson and Michigan's State's 1979 national championship team.

"It's what we expected, going to the championship game," guard Charlie Bell said in the casual tone one hears from champions, not bravado-spewing pretenders.

It was typical of Michigan State, just winning the game. Rip up the cards with the numbers "10" and "9" on them. No style points necessary.

There was no way the Badgers were going to hang with Michigan State, just as they couldn't three previous times this season. The only reason they did for a half Saturday was the Spartans' horrendous shooting. If Michigan State was the "Flintstones," somebody needed to call Mr. Slate at halftime to clean up the falling rocks at the quarry, otherwise known as the RCA Dome.

Meanwhile, the Badgers offered plenty of unsightly moments of their own. Center Mark Vershaw's surprisingly sweet spin move in the post caused raised eyebrows, only to be followed by crinkled eyebrows when he launched an awful reverse layup attempt. Open looks turned into open bricks, and soon the result everyone expected came about.

"They bang you, they bump you," said Cleaves, an offensive -- uh, point -- guard. "I can't wait to soak these legs."

In the second half, Michigan State's Morris Peterson came alive, touched, he said by a spirit far beyond the three-point line -- that of his grandmother, whose funeral he attended earlier in the week. Peterson had 16 points in the second half. Add Bell's defense on Wisconsin's Jon Bryant and the Badgers had no chance.

Spartans coach Tom Izzo said he wanted his team to experience more of the Final Four atmosphere this season after losing in the semifinals last year. Last year, he said, the players were too disconnected from events surrounding the games. That much they've accomplished so far in Indianapolis, a nearly perfect site for this event. Now the players might want to experience some basketball while they're here.

"Everybody on our team comes from up-and-down teams in high school," Bell said. "Here, we play an up-tempo game. When you play against Wisconsin ... I hate playing Wisconsin, because they're going to slow it down and get back on defense and make it hard to score on transition. But we have to be able to win any way we can, and we did a great job of doing that."

Roommates at MSU, Morris Peterson (left) and Mateen Cleaves shake hands near the end of Saturday's win.(AP)

Several of the players wore T-shirts in the locker room that the Spartans made for the Final Four. On the front they said, "Champions are forever" and "80 remain," meaning minutes until the championship.

Then there were some abbreviations, Izzo-isms, that Bell explained.

"T.T.W." -- Tough Teams Win.

"P.P" -- Players Play.

"T.P.W." -- Tough Players Win.

Two of the players who played, tough players who won, are roommates: Cleaves and Peterson, both seniors.

"We're like little kids at home, like 'What if we win the national championship?'" Peterson said. "Sometimes Mateen jumps up and down."

They were born 10 days apart at the same hospital. Their basketball roots together extend deeper than Michigan State to playgrounds in Flint, Mich.

"I would be Jalen Rose or somebody," Peterson said. "He would be Steve Smith. We would always try to imitate somebody. I would be Magic. He would be Greg Kelser. We always talked about being in a position to win the national championship."

Now they are finally in that position.

"Go like this for a second," said a television reporter to Peterson, rubbing both cheeks, apparently because the player was sweating.

"In 3, 2, 1 ..." she said.

Some extraordinary careers are almost over. But not yet.