Big Ten tourney Saturday afternoon

Dragon Mood? -- hopeful, yet nervous

Gearing up for THE game. Ahem, at least THE game for today!

Ask anyone and they'll tell you the MSU Spartans have had a weird and disappointing season. Ranked #2 in the nation before the season began, they have struggled mightily and up until this past week, were even in danger of not making the NCAA selection for the Big Dance. Oh my gosh!

Thursday night, they handled Iowa pretty easily to move onto the quarterfinals and meet up with Purdue. Amazingly, they got an early lead, held onto it and beat the Boilermakers 74-56. As the headlines announced, they pounded Purdue.

Now, I'm watching as they play their third game in as many days, against Penn State in the semi-finals. If they win this, they will play Ohio State, ranked #1 in the nation, tomorrow afternoon.

Go State, beat the Nittany Lions!

UPDATE: Halftime, tied at 26.

FINAL SCORE: Spartans lost, 61-48. Damn! :-(

Factoid for the day

Dragon Mood? -- proud to call myself a Spartan

While Michigan State's loss to North Carolina last night stings a bit, it was the tournament journey that aroused and propelled people all over the state to forget their troubles and unite in rooting for the Spartans.

Here's a fact I hadn't realized and one that speaks to how well Tom Izzo has coached the men's basketball team:

Michigan State had one national title and four Final Fours the last 10 years entering the 2009 tournament while North Carolina had one national title and three Final Fours. They have been the two most consistent, most successful programs through the last 10 NCAA tournaments.

My hat's off to you, Coach Izzo, and the entire Spartan team. Thanks for a GREAT March Madness!

Bad time on [his] dime

Dragon Mood? -- another reason to love Izzo: his plain-spoken-ness

Coach Izzo on the Big Ten Network:

"I think it has been a PR nightmare," Izzo said Monday. "And, I think it has hurt all of us."

...

Those who don't [have the Big Ten Network] are fed up, and Izzo has empathy for them.

"We have so many things right now that we're trying to fight -- the price of tickets, the economy of our state -- and then we throw this at them," he said.

"Five years from now, if cable companies pick it up, does it end up better than it was and we're just going through a bad time? I just don't like the bad time being on my dime."

Why we're so awesome

Dragon Mood? -- pleased as punch!

As my nephew, Luke, put it so succinctly, here's a nice article on why we're SO AWESOME. I couldn't help it, I've reproduced the whole damn thing. Oh yeah, this is Andy Katz from ESPN.

It's finally time to acknowledge something: Michigan State -- yes, Michigan State -- has arguably been college basketball's top program over the past 10 years.

There, it's been said. Now let the e-mails and message boards outside of East Lansing implode.

But if you disagree, you had better bring a lot of ammunition, because the Spartans have plenty on their side. Yes, we know. It's not what mainstream America is used to hearing, but it's the truth.

Tom Izzo was the handpicked successor of Jud Heathcote, and all Izzo has done is make the Spartans one of the most consistent programs in the country. Over the past 10 seasons, Michigan State has the most Final Four appearances of any school in the nation (four) and also has a fifth Elite Eight appearance in that span.

The Spartans have a national title, four conference championships and two conference tournament titles to go with 10 straight NCAA Tournament appearances (the fifth-longest streak in the nation).

Want more? Michigan State has had NBA draft picks (10 since 2000) and graduates (29 out of the 35 players who completed their four years on campus earned a degree). The Spartans have excelled on their home court, posting a 141-13 record (72-8 Big Ten) and selling out the 14,759-seat Breslin Center for 145 consecutive games. They also have an elite practice facility in the Berkowitz Basketball Complex, and are consistently good in recruiting, bringing in eight McDonald's All-Americans and five players who were named Mr. Basketball in Michigan.

Here are four more of my favorite stats:
• Over the past 10 years, Michigan State played 32 ranked nonconference opponents in the regular season, including 20 in the top 10. MSU also played Kentucky twice during that period when the Wildcats were unranked.

• Izzo has had to deal with quite a bit of staff turnover, with six assistants leaving for head coaching jobs in the past 10 years.

• Few schools have as much of a defined basketball identity as Michigan State, which led the Big Ten in rebounding eight of the past 10 years and was ranked in the top 10 nationally six times.

• Every four-year player recruited by Izzo in the past 10 years has played in at least one Final Four.

That last one may be the one that pushes the Spartans over the top. Think about that: Izzo can legitimately claim that if a player stays for all four years, he's got a real shot at being in a Final Four.

Oh, and if we want to really rub it in the rest of the Big Ten, every team in the league has had a coaching change during Izzo's 12-year tenure, with seven of the 10 schools having three coaches during his run. Izzo once considered leaving East Lansing -- for the chance to coach the Atlanta Hawks -- but he stayed.

What does Izzo have to say about all this?

"Someone has to bring all of this up since I never look at it, but when I see it on paper, I say, 'Damn, that's pretty good,'" Izzo said. "We've lost two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior [early to the NBA draft] and we're not the type of school that can recruit easily. We're not Duke or North Carolina. I feel privileged that we're in that spot, but we've earned it."

The 2005 Final Four run may have been the most significant. Reaching St. Louis after three straight Final Fours from 1999 through 2001 was the most telling sign that Izzo had built a power program, not just a great team that had a nucleus to sustain those three previous Final Four squads.

"That was the biggest one," Izzo said. "We didn't drop off."

Izzo points to all the defections, from Jason Richardson to Zach Randolph to those that shouldn't have left early like Marcus Taylor and Erazem Lorbek, to illustrate the number of hits the Spartans have had to withstand.

In 2003-04, he put together a brutal nonconference schedule -- including Kansas, Duke, Oklahoma, Kentucky, UCLA and Syracuse -- that resulted in a 5-6 start. MSU didn't fall flat, though, rallying to make the NCAA Tournament at 18-11 before losing to Nevada in the first round.

The next season, the Spartans were back in the Final Four after knocking off Duke and Kentucky in consecutive games in the Austin Regional, only to lose to eventual champ North Carolina in the national semifinal.

It would be easy to anoint Duke as the top program over the past 10 years, but Michigan State's nonconference schedule, its ability to withstand losing assistants, the Final Fours (one more than Duke) and the facilities give the Spartans the nod, in one writer's opinion.

Arizona has been a model of consistency, but doesn't have the number of Final Fours to show for it (even though it can match MSU with its tough schedules). Kentucky, North Carolina, Connecticut, Maryland and Syracuse all have had a dip; all except Kentucky have missed the NCAA Tournament at least once during the past 10 years.

Florida's run has been extremely impressive. The Gators do have three Final Fours and two national titles, but they also had some early exits and weren't the dominant team in the SEC (Kentucky was) early on under Billy Donovan. The nonconference schedule and staff changes still would favor MSU.

Kansas has its points, too, weathering a head coaching change, overall staff changes and NBA draft defections to consistently make the NCAA Tournament and make deep runs. The Jayhawks, though, don't have as many Final Four appearances, a title or comparable facilities.

That leaves the Spartans, who just keep plugging along.

"We've [even] lost video guys to the NBA," Izzo said. "It's hard on me to keep the continuity. I was talking to Drew Neitzel about this and he was recruited by Mike Garland and Brian Gregory, and then Doug Wojcik had him for a year, Jim Boylen had him for two years, and now he'll have Garland back again [who replaced Boylen] on the staff. It's hard on the player and the coach to survive all of that.

"That's what I consider us, I consider us survivors."

If you think for a second that anything in East Lansing will start faltering, think again. Just look at what Michigan State has going for itself in 2007-08 and beyond:

• The Spartans were 23-12 last season against the nation's ninth-best schedule and return 97.8 percent of their scoring, 97.5 percent of their rebounding, 97.1 percent of their assists and 96.8 percent of their players' minutes from last season.

• Neitzel, likely the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year and a possible national player of the year candidate, returns along with Travis Walton and Raymar Morgan as the core of the team. There also is a top-five recruiting class with guards Chris Allen, Kalin Lucas and Durrell Summers, and 7-foot center Tom Herzog is ready to play after redshirting.

• The Spartans were sixth nationally in scoring defense and field-goal percentage defense, and eighth in rebounding margin.

• The Spartans recently received an oral commitment from top-five player Delvon Roe, who graduates from high school in 2008.

"I'm as excited about the future as I have been in a while," Izzo said. "We've got the balance back in our classes. We've got all the pieces. I think we can get back [to the Final Four] again.

"It's funny, programs have been recruiting against me, saying that I'd be gone, gone to the NBA, and I've had my chances but I'm still here and a number of the coaches who were saying that are gone. It was an interesting thing [with the Hawks], but I have no regrets. We still maintain a tough schedule, we've put guys in the pros, we're graduating players at a humongous number, we've got the guys that weren't as highly recruited like Neitzel and [former MSU player Maurice] Ager. We've done it with different kinds of kids. Our crowds are great.

"Getting to the NCAA Tournament [this past season] was huge for us. That was our 10th year in a row. We've had the Final Fours, the championship, but there were a couple of years in a row that we didn't do as well, maybe because of injuries. But we still got in. We withstood some things. And despite not having the rep, we were able to reload."

Let the debate rage, but it might be hard to unseat Michigan State as the top program of the past 10 years.

Senior writer Andy Katz covers college basketball for ESPN.com.

An Auspicious Day

Dragon Mood? -- exhilarated and excited by auspiciousness

TODAY, as a Chinese fortuneteller might say, is an auspicious day. Aside from it being the day after April Fools' Day -- which is auspicious in its own right -- there are four things happening today which merit mention.

The first auspicious event happening today is a full moon. It is the first full moon since the vernal equinox. Whether you know it or not, whether it even registers on your lunar radar or not, the first full moon after the vernal equinox has historically been a significant event, a time for holy days and celebrating. Learn about the ancient Saxons from this site:

Eostre was the Saxon version of the Germanic lunar goddess Ostara. She gave her name to the Christian Easter and to the female hormone estrogen. Her feast day was held on the full moon following the vernal equinox -- almost the identical calculation as for the Christian Easter in the west. One delightful legend associated with Eostre was that she found an injured bird on the ground one winter. To save its life, she transformed it into a hare. But "the transformation was not a complete one. The bird took the appearance of a hare but retained the ability to lay eggs. ..the hare would decorate these eggs and leave them as gifts to Eostre."

Related to the occurrence of the full moon, today is also Pesach, the beginning of the Jewish holiday, Passover. Passover commemorates the exodus of the Israelites from ancient Egypt and the "birth" of the children of Israel as a Jewish nation.

On a more mundane, albeit athletic level -- though some may regard it as the high, holy day of college basketball -- is the National Championship game for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The final competitors, the two rivals facing off this evening in Atlanta, Georgia, are the Ohio State University Buckeyes and the University of Florida Gators. In the Final Four round, OSU beat the Georgetown Hoyas and Florida beat UCLA to have a go at one another and a crack at the national title. As a diehard Spartan, and a fellow competitor of the Big Ten, I'll probably root for OSU.

Finally, today was an auspicious day because it was Opening Day for the Detroit Tigers baseball team, who had an incredible season last year and ended up winning the coveted American League Championship for the first time in 23 years or something like that. All the local Motown television stations provided lots and lots of air time to the event, including the local Fox channel, which carried the entire game live. I was a very bad, slacker-like unemployed person and sat and watched most of the game. (In my defense, I did take the dog and myself out for a 30-minute walk during the 6th, 7th and 8th innings. Not a complete slacker.) Sadly, the Tigers lost their opener to the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-3. But it was still a wonderful, exciting event, loaded with all kinds of hopefulness and anticipation.

Sunday morning

Dragon Mood? -- quiet

What does your Sunday morning look like? This morning, I'm in Chicago, at my sister and brother-in-law's house, spending time with them, their kids and my kids during March Madness.

Ruth, Paul and Jess have headed off to church. Lina, Josh and I are here at their house, watching the Sunday morning news shows. I fixed a pot of coffee and am sipping on a cup as I blog.

We watched the Spartans lose to North Carolina last night ... so close and yet they couldn't finish it. Yet, it was a solid effort and we're proud of our Spartans. Afterward, we played Spite & Malice until midnight; Ruth went to bed and we finished up playing Euchre, Josh watching on the sidelines.

I don't know what we'll do today, other than watch more basketball. We may go over to Aaron's place for a bit and check out paint swatches. All the kids will head back to their respective homes today, hopefully later. Jess flies back to Philly tonight. I will hang out until tomorrow midday. Then I'll take the Chicago Metra down to Union Station and catch my train back to East Lansing.

I'm missing S and looking forward to seeing her. I'll be home soon, baby.

Big Ten Tourney

Here's the schedule:

At The United Center, Chicago

First Round
Thursday, March 8
Michigan vs. Minnesota, Noon
Michigan State vs. Northwestern, 2:30 p.m.
Illinois vs. Penn State, 5 p.m.

Quarterfinals
Friday, March 9
Ohio State vs. Michigan-Minnesota winner, Noon
Iowa vs. Purdue, 2:30 p.m.
Wisconsin vs. Michigan State-Northwestern winner, 6:30 p.m.
Indiana vs. Illinois-Penn State winner, 9 p.m.

Semifinals
Saturday, March 10
Ohio State—Michigan-Minnesota winner vs. Iowa-Purdue, 1:30 p.m.
Wisconsin—Michigan State-Northwestern winner vs. Indiana—Illinois-Penn State winner, 4 p.m.

Championship
Sunday, March 11
Semifinal winners, 3:30 p.m.

G O    S P A R T A N S !

Winter Storm, basketball & Oscar Sunday

Dragon Mood? -- warm, cozy and relaxed

The title of this post pretty much sums up what I'm doing today. S and I are comfortably ensconced in the pied-a-terre here in Motown because of nasty weather predictions between now and Monday morning.

As far as basketball, Louisville is just about to beat Connecticut. Immediately after that, it's Duke vs. St. Johns. And the BIG game for today is #1 Ohio State against #2 Wisconsin. I can't stand Bo Ryan, Wisconsin's coach, so I guess I'll root for Ohio State.

As for the Oscars tonight, I'm rather ho-hum about the affair. I may read, I may do some sudoku, -- who knows -- maybe I'll be back upstairs, sitting here at the computer, posting to calypsoDragon13?

late January update on the Spartans

Bob Wojnowski, a sports writer from the Detroit News who usually has nothing nice to say about MSU sports, wrote this article in today's News. Since I'm trying to speak positively of others more in this new year, I thought I'd reprint part of his article on the MSU men's basketball team:

"Open your eyes now and should anyone really be surprised by what we see? We won't get too goofy because the Spartans aren't a shoo-in for the tournament. But at 17-4 (4-2 Big Ten), they're in fine position, if they can survive a nasty 10-game march to March that now looms.

As bubble season unofficially opens, I'll say this: If the Spartans win their five remaining home games, they're in. If they drop one to Wisconsin or Ohio State but steal a road game, they're in.

Before we start sifting through RPIs and getting decimal points all over our nice clothes, we should take a moment to consider what MSU already has pulled off. It has beaten Texas. It has beaten Illinois. It has won all its home games against a weak schedule.

And along the way, the Spartans have served notice to the rest of the sloppy Big Ten that they plan to contend for something. Wisconsin and Ohio State will fight for the conference championship, but the Spartans are in the middle of everything else, thus far confirming two significant points.

If you give Izzo a little something, he'll put together something more. If you give Neitzel a little, he'll take a lot."

Thank you, Bob Wojnowski. There, I said something nice!