Frankly Speaking: Opinion & Commentary
2009 Apr 06: NCAA Men's Basketball Championship
Although it's now April, we're facing this evening the last gasp of March Madness -- the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. I'm pleased (as in grinning from ear to ear) to note that my local team, the Michigan State University (MSU) Spartans, is contending for the honor, the trophy, and substantial bragging rights -- having been dissed by many sportswriters and talking heads across the country as just not being good enough.Not good enough. Tell that to the teams and coaches from Robert Morris, USC, Kansas, Louisville, and -- most recently -- UConn.
Listening to the serious sports geeks at work, I overheard a comment about how -- since MSU had beaten both UConn and top ranked Louisville to get to its current position -- that MSU should be given at least an honorary Big East championship title. (Seems only fitting to me, even though I doubt that the Spartans will be so honored.)
Tonight's game will be anything but easy. UNC is no pushover, as MSU knows very well. A scant four months ago, when these same teams met in a Big Ten vs. ACC shootout, UNC trounced and embarrassed MSU by beating the Spartans by a whopping 35 points.
On the other hand, while these are the same schools and the same coaches, neither is the same team it was in December. UNC has grown to be one of the most amazing teams in NCAA Basketball ever and this year marks a record eighteenth time the school has made it to the Final Four. This season, MSU has gone through fire and ice and is much stronger, more solid, and more savvy than it was, and plays with more sense of teamwork and of destiny than I have seen in years.
MSU Coach Tom Izzo has brought a basketball team to the NCAA Final Four five times in the last eleven years, and won it all in 2000.
This is going to be one for the record books.
If the Spartans should happen to win, as is my hope, there will be celebration galor all the way from Ford Field in Detroit to East Lansing.
And I'll send my personal condolences to Mr. Obama for having picked the wrong team this year.
Dream big, aim high, shoot for the stars...
and learn everything you can along the way.