Projected as the Big Ten’s fifth-best team in the preseason, Michigan State made a mockery of the official media poll by winning the regular-season title by three games.
The seventh-ranked Spartans played so well down the stretch — beating five Top 25 opponents during their active seven-game winning streak — that virtually every bracketologist believes Michigan State has clinched a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
So that begs the question: What will motivate the top-seeded Spartans (26-5) as they prepare to face eighth-seeded Oregon (24-8) on Friday afternoon in the Big Ten tournament’s first quarterfinal at Indianapolis?
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, the Big Ten Coach of the Year, could take a shortcut and just tell his players it’s a matchup between the league’s two hottest teams, as the Ducks carry an eight-game winning streak into the Friday contest.
Instead, Izzo is more likely to appeal to his players as humans.
“Winning ways are winning ways,” Izzo said. “Every time you take the court, if you’re really growing to be special as a person, every time you compete, you’re going to try to compete to win. That’s easier said than done.”
Indeed. Particularly because there is little correlation between how Michigan State has fared in the Big Ten tournament and what it has gone on to achieve in the NCAA Tournament.
Since the Big Ten started playing a postseason tournament in 1998, the Spartans have reached eight Final Fours. Three times, they won the Big Ten tournament first. Three times, they lost their opener. Once they lost in the semis, and once they lost in the final.
“If you lose a game, whether the first or second (game), you’re going to learn a lesson that’s hard to swallow,” Izzo said. “What I’m going to tell them is, ‘You don’t need to learn the lesson. I’ve been there, done that.’
“‘This is one time when my experience can help you. It’s not as much fun as you think. You know, having Saturday night off is not that good. There’s a million Saturdays between now and death. Enjoy them then. That’s now. Let’s see if we can do our job and play to the level that we need to play to.'”
Michigan State reached the top of the Big Ten without getting anybody on the all-Big Ten first or second teams. That was partially because nobody racked up huge numbers being a part of Izzo’s 10-man rotation.
Oregon earned two spots on the third team, too: Seven-foot senior Nate Bittle and sophomore point guard Jackson Shelstad. Bittle has averaged 18.1 points, 7.9 rebounds and 3.3 blocks during the Ducks’ eight-game streak while Shelstad (13.4 ppg) scored a team-high 18 in Oregon’s 72-59 second-round win over Indiana on Thursday.
Shelstad remembers well the Ducks’ regular-season meeting with Michigan State. Not just because that 86-74 loss Feb. 8 in East Lansing, Mich., was Oregon’s last defeat, but because the Ducks squandered a 50-36 halftime lead.
“When we played Michigan State the first time, we played really hard the first half, we got a lead,” Shelstad said. “Then the second half we kind of laid our foot off the gas and they went on their run. We just know we have to play a full 40 minutes to compete with them.
“They’re going to play physical, play really hard, so we’re just going to have to bring that same energy.”
