Analysis: One word carries Michigan State to Final Four

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — At the end of each and every huddle, the Spartan players would break and chant in unison: "Indy."

This ritual, this reciting of the name of the Final Four's host city began last summer and extended, eventually, into the fall and winter months. As Michigan State slogged through some ugly games and more than a few painful losses, the coaching staff grew sick of it.

"We got tired of hearing it because we were playing so poorly — no way this is an Indy-bound team," assistant coach Dane Fife said. "We all kind of snickered in the back, thinking these guys have no idea what it's going to take to get to Indy."

At some point between the embarrassing overtime loss to Texas Southern at home and their fourth loss of Big Ten play (to Illinois at home), Spartans head coach Tom Izzo banned the chant.

You're not worthy of that, Izzo told his team. He told them to stop looking big picture and think small. Worry about the next game, not the postseason.

"We had to work for it," freshman guard Lourawls "Tum Tum" Nairn Jr. said. "(The coaches) wanted us to work for it. Now, we can finally say it."

A piece of netting peeked out from under Nairn's baseball cap. He and the rest of the Spartans had just finished cutting down the nets here, minutes after an exhilarating and draining overtime victory over Louisville that punched their ticket to the Final Four.

They'll go to Indianapolis after all.

"I thought sooner or later, it would all come together," Izzo said. "We've all been through a lot. It's been hard. Your own fans are even questioning you. …

"I did trust and believe that we were better than we were."

His assistants did, too. But they might have been the only ones.

"Nobody really expected this," Fife said. Everybody wrote us off even before the season started, I think. 'This is a down year. This is not one of Izzo's best teams.' "

On the subject of talent, the critics were right; Izzo admits as much. This is not the most talented team of his 20-year tenure, and certainly not the most talented of his seven Final Four teams.

But it does deserve to be here. The Spartans, seeded seventh, knocked out the No. 2, 3 and 4 seeds in the East region. (I'm not going to apologize for that any way, shape, or form," Izzo said.) Led by a coach who has built a legacy on milking the most out of his teams in March, Michigan State has lost to just one team this month — Wisconsin, which is also Final Four-bound.

The Spartans have relied on a familiar recipe to get to this point, with the only surprise being that no one outside of the Michigan State program thought it'd work this year, a season after losing two key players to the NBA. This squad is led by its veterans — seniors Travis Trice and Branden Dawson, and junior Denzel Valentine — who all came through in various ways in overtime to down Louisville on Sunday afternoon. Dawson, with the putback that sealed the victory. Valentine, with the subsequent steal. Trice, with the pair of free throws to ice it.

Afterward, as the players leapt on top of each other and Magic Johnson ambled around the court embracing Izzo and Dawson and anyone within reach, Trice fell to his knees and bawled.

It was Trice who had been told he was too short and too skinny to play at the high-major level. It was Trice suffered a series of injuries, from blisters to a mysterious brain infection, that nearly derailed his college career. It was Trice, surrounded by his parents who'd drive through the night to be here, who was named the regional's most outstanding player after leading the Spartans, once again, in scoring.

No one outside of the Michigan State locker room thought Trice would be the catalyst for a Final Four run; even Izzo has called it a long shot. He's not shied away from any truth like that, calling this his most surprising NCAA tournament run yet.

Michigan State will remain in its underdog role when it finally arrives in Indy, the lowest seed left in the tournament among three teams who have been ranked in the top 10 all season long. The Spartans will still be teased about their Achilles heel, their typically poor free throw shooting. They'll still have critics who believe the East region was the weakest of the four, and its champion the luckiest of all.

But the Spartans still have a locker room that believes in what's inside. And they've got a team that's now allowed to break huddles with that "Indy" chant again — though the players may decline to do it. They now know exactly what it takes to get there.

Besides, they don't need to state the obvious.