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Spartans' leftovers take the cakeBy Gary Shelton © St. Petersburg Times, published March 26, 2001 ATLANTA -- First, you hug. Everyone knows that. By now, the Spartans of Michigan State have this winning thing down. They know the dance steps by heart. You hug. Then you put on the goofy visors. Then the T-shirts. Then you hold up the mocked-up newspapers. Then you gather in the center of the court and dance. Then you go over to the CBS announcers and make silly faces. Then you take turns going up the ladder, waving to the crowd and snipping the cords of the net. Then you crank up the bus, get out the road map and head to another Final Four. At Michigan State, this is the way basketball works. The Spartans rough up another dream, and they do a little celebrating. By now, they know the choreography so well they could get through with muscle memory. They now are among the elite. Let no one doubt that again. They may lack the history of Duke or North Carolina or Kentucky, but when it comes to recent history, the Spartans take a back seat to no one. Michigan State earned its third straight trip to the Final Four on Sunday afternoon with a 69-62 victory over Temple, and let history remember this as the most amazing one of all. These players, after all, were the leftovers from the Mateen Cleaves banquet of a year ago, the cast of extras that sat and watched as Cleaves and Morris Peterson and A.J. Granger drove the team to a national championship. Who could have expected another trip? A year ago, those three players accounted for just less than half the team's scoring, half its assists and a shade more than a third of its rebounding. Without those guys, the ones left behind looked very much like the Pete Best Singers. Yet, here they come, flexing their muscles once again, inviting the other three teams left standing to take their best shot. Can Arizona, which withstood the bruising Illinois, hang with them? Better question: Can the winner of Duke-Maryland, the ACC matchup in the other bracket, bang with them? We'll see. No one since Duke in 1991-92 has been able to repeat as national champion, and when the Blue Devils did it, they had everyone back. For Michigan State to manage it would be the greatest job ever of a college basketball team reloading. The thing is, the Spartans look like a team that will have a shot. They rebound like madmen, a trait born of a practice routine that coach Tom Izzo refers to as "the War Drill." Yes, it is as physical as it sounds. They rebound in waves, as if Izzo had somehow squeezed Andre Hutson into a copier machine and, just like that, all these copies came out. Then there is the way they play defense. It is merciless, chip-on-the-shoulder defense. Just ask the Temple backcourt of Lynn Greer and Quincy Wadley. You remember those guys, don't you? They're the backcourt that humbled their Florida counterparts in the second round of the tournament. Against Michigan State, they were invisible. Wadley was 2-of-12 and missed all seven of his three-point attempts. Greer was 7-of-21. "I think any time you are good defensively, you have a good chance of getting to the end," Temple coach John Chaney said. "They're as good defensively as we've seen. The way they rebound, they're always going to be in the game." Then, there is this. Michigan State plays like a champion. Watch in the big moments, when a team narrows the margin to three, when it starts to feel hope. There is something about the Spartans that rises then, something the good teams have, and it takes other teams by the neck and squeezes. Someone, anyone, seems to make a play, and the Spartans are off again. Take Sunday's game, when the unlikeliest hero you could imagine, a tall, soft-featured fifth-year senior named Dave Thomas, lived the game every role player on every team in the country dreams of. Chaney admitted he examined the stats and came to the conclusion it would be simply swell if Thomas were the guy with the ball in his hands as the shot clock ran down. According to Chaney, Thomas was "the wrong guy" for Michigan State. The result was that Thomas, who had been so horrible against Gonzaga that Charlie Bell and Hutson came to his room and told him to snap out of it, turned into Cleaves. Or so it seemed. He hit 8 of 12 shots, and he had seven rebounds, and he stifled Wadley with his defense. Dave Thomas? You can forgive Chaney if he never eats at Wendy's again. It was a performance to make them feel better back in Thomas' hometown of Brampton, Ontario. And frankly, the Thomas family could use it. Wayne Thomas, Dave's 38-year-old cousin, is faring poorly in his battle against cancer. Linda Thomas, Dave's mom, begins radiation treatment for breast cancer in early April. Martha Rolley, Dave's grandmother, has had two heart attacks in the past two months. "It's been hard to keep my focus," he says softly. Wrong player, right moment. Nice story. Nice team. But is Michigan State good enough to repeat as national champion? Or is it simply a team that looks better because its expected competition (North Carolina and Florida) bowed out early? Frankly, the Spartans act as if they hope you don't believe they can. They are full of the vigor of the underdog, talking about how the Final Four is going to be them vs. the world, and how no one believes in them but them. Teams always say that as they enter the Final Four. Take it from the Spartans, who have been there enough to know.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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