Processing the New Year's Day Miracle

I've had a few days now to process what transpired on January 1, though I am still impatiently waiting for either ESPN or BTN to replay MSU's miraculous Cotton Bowl comeback victory.

Where to start?

It's incredible to consider that the two teams playing for the national championship, Ohio State and Oregon, are the only two teams that beat Michigan State in 2014.

I'm happy for the Big Ten Conference. For at least this year, the conference has acquitted itself well in the bowl season and shaken the critics off its back. New Year's Day was especially sweet with Wisconsin defeating Auburn in overtime, Michigan State shocking Baylor, and Ohio State playing a great second half and soundly defeating Alabama.

Another wonderful aspect of those victories, and in particular MSU's win? The Jim "The Messiah" Harbaugh love-fest was knocked off the front pages for the first time in weeks, and people were reminded that football is still played at Michigan State.

Mark Dantonio and Michigan State also made a statement that this program isn't going anywhere. This was a huge win over a Baylor team that for weeks had complained that it belonged in the college football playoff, and is a legitimate top 5 team. The Bears have the best vertical passing game I've seen in I don't know how long (at least since the Spartans played Oregon earlier in the season--and as everyone knows, the Ducks are now playing for a national championship).

It was a win in a hostile environment that was, for all intents and purposes, a Baylor home game. Perhaps the fashion in which MSU won wasn't pretty, but the Spartans took advantage of every opportunity that Baylor threw its way in the fourth quarter. That's all one can ask a team to do. For as poorly as MSU played in the first three quarters (actually, the first quarter wasn't bad--the 2nd and 3rd were ugly), they figured it out when it mattered the most, and Pat Narduzzi decided to "unleash the hounds" in the final quarter. Probably feeling desperation and acknowledging that the defensive scheme of the first three quarters was a failure, Nardawg had the defense blitz on practically every play in the fourth quarter and it paid off.

So now I must eventually find the time to go out and find some Cotton Bowl merch. I tend to wait until a bowl game has been played and the result known before I spend any money on clothing or other paraphernalia. The one exception was last year when I bought two Rose Bowl shirts: one before January 1 and another after January 1.

One thing I know for certain: when the Cotton Bowl dvd/blu-ray combo pack is released (and I've already seen listings for it) I will be one of the first people to snag a copy. I will add it to my MSU sports dvd collection which now includes: the 1966 MSU/ND football game, the MSU basketball documentary that BTN produced five years ago, the 1979 NCAA basketball championship, the 2000 NCAA basketball championship, and last year's Rose Bowl. (Sorry to get all "Rain Man" on you there. Sometimes I can't help myself).

Well, I'm signing off for now. I'll be back later, whether you like it or not, with more musings.

I can't believe what I just saw

I'm almost speechless...I can't believe what I just saw. I realize I'm stealing that line from Jack Buck's call of former Spartan Kirk Gibson's walk off homer in game one of the '88 World Series, but it keep going in my head and seems apropos.

 

I can't believe what I just saw.

 

MSU, seemingly unable to stop Baylor's high-charged, sling-it-all-over-the-field offense, improbably and amazingly scored 21 unanswered points in the 4th quarter to complete the most amazing Spartan football comeback win I've ever witnessed.

 

(Yes, I know about the 2006 Northwestern comeback, but that doesn't belong in the discussion with this game against a national top five team playing in its own Texas backyard).

 

My hands have finally stopped shaking. My heart has stopped pounding at about 120 beats a minute. It will still take hours for my adrenaline to reach normal levels and for me to process this amazing 42-41 MSU win over Baylor.

A quick end of the year wrap-up

This is one final post before the end of the year, sort of a quick "year-end wrap-up."

 

For MSU sports fans, the year 2014 literally peaked on January 1. The next 364 days were a bit of a comedown.

 

In 2013, the final year of the BCS era, the Spartan football team finally made a BCS bowl; and in the last year in which the Rose Bowl was, for the most part, the game we grew up with, MSU participated. In what felt like a throwback to Rose Bowls of the past, the Big Ten champion Spartans took on the PAC 12 champion Stanford Cardinal. And in a good old fashioned defensive slobber knocker, the Spartans made a memorable 4th down stand and won 24-20. Spartan football ended the season ranked #3 for its highest finish in my lifetime.

 

And that day was the pinnacle of the Michigan State sports year.

 

MSU basketball had a very good season, albeit injury-plagued and somewhat frustrating. The highlight for me was the Big Ten tournament, in which a finally full-strength Spartan team demolished Wisconsin and Michigan to take the title. The team entered the NCAA tournament as many pundits' favorite to win it all. Even President Obama picked MSU to go all the way. (In retrospect, this may have been the kiss of death). The Spartans made it to the Elite Eight before falling to eventual champion UConn. I can still remember watching the game on a warm April day at my brother's house. The Spartans looked to be in command at halftime before everything inexplicably unraveled in the second half. Not only did MSU not win the national championship, but the 2014 senior class became the first one under Tom Izzo to not make a Final Four. This was a remarkable streak that was bound to end at some point.

 

With the end of basketball season in April, it was finally time to unwind and reflect on what an amazing time it had been in 2013-14 for MSU football (mainly) and basketball (to a slightly lesser extent). 2013 had been such an incredible year for football that I was really in no hurry for the 2014 season to begin.

 

I must have been one of the few who never expected the 2014 football team to improve upon what had been accomplished in 2013. A 13-1 record (undefeated in Big Ten play) plus a Rose Bowl victory is special. It may be a once in a generation season. So what the 2014 team accomplished (thus far) was NOT a disappointment for me. Sure, a spot in the four-team playoff would have been fantastic, but it just wasn't meant to be.

 

The 2014 Spartan football team is 10-2 (7-1 in conference play) with the Cotton Bowl still to be played tomorrow. In '13, a spirited and focused MSU team punched Ohio State in the mouth in the Big Ten title game. When the teams had their rematch in '14, the Buckeyes had a score to settle. It was MSU's only blemish in the conference season and probably the only roadblock to MSU actually making the four team football playoff.

 

With the 2014-15 Spartan basketball team floundering, who knows what 2015 has in store. If MSU football could find a way to beat a high octane Baylor team in tomorrow's Cotton Bowl, the year could get off to a rousing start.

 

As a grizzled veteran of many, many disappointing MSU sports seasons of the past, I have very little to complain about now. Tom Izzo, despite the travails of this year's team, is a great basketball coach who is still the envy of most college basketball programs in America. Despite the arrival of "The Messiah" Jim Harbaugh in Ann Arbor, there is no reason that both Michigan AND Michigan State football can't be simultaneously successful. MSU football is in great hands under Mark Dantonio.

When you get down to it, this is a great time to be a Michigan State sports fan, and there's no reason not to be confident and optimistic about the future.

Maryland 68, Michigan State 66

Tonight's 68-66 MSU loss to Maryland was quite possibly the ugliest college basketball game I've ever witnessed. If nothing else, it was the most unsightly first half of basketball in my memory, If one were to see the 17-14 halftime score across the ESPN crawl, he or she would be forgiven for thinking it was a football score. The first half was so horrible, in fact, that with 6:24 left in the first half, Michigan State had only six points. Maryland wasn't much better, they had eleven.

 

Play was marginally better in the second half and the two overtimes, but the more prolific scoring was probably due more to the fact the game became a glorified free throw shooting contents. If the game comes to that, MSU is at a serious disadvantage.

 

MSU had a chance to win in regulation, and they had a chance to win in the first overtime. In fact, MSU had numerous chances to pull away in the game but just could not do it.

 

I know that criticizing Tom Izzo is practically verboten around these parts, and I do so rarely because the man's track record speaks for itself and he knows more basketball in his pinky finger that I could ever hope to know in a lifetime. Still, I question the timeout call on Bryn Forbes' breakaway with about twelve seconds left in the first half (though I have since heard that it was, in fact, Travis Trice who called the timeout) and not fouling Maryland before the Terps were able to launch the game-tying three-pointer that sent the game into the first overtime.

 

The bottom line is that this basketball team is not very good right now. Perhaps part of this is due to Branden Dawson still overcoming his injury. But even with a healthy Dawson, this team has struggled against good competition. There are just too many weaknesses: lack of a consistent interior presence, absolutely atrocious free throw shooting that never seems to improve, and an overreliance on perimeter shooting that is inconsistent at best. To top it all off, there is nobody on the team that seems able to take charge when the game is on the line.

 

It may just be "one of those years." But I fear that if matters don't improve, MSU's NCAA tournament streak is in jeopardy

Catching up

I am writing this on a brand-new tablet that I received for Christmas. It was a most unexpected but pleasant surprise. No longer will I have to tap out this blog on my Android phone or sneak it in via any desktop computer that makes itself momentary available.

 

It's been quite an eventful few weeks in collegiate sports.

 

At this point, it seems a certainty that Jim Harbaugh will end up as Michigan's new football coach. I'd hoped that he'd turn down Michigan simply so I could witness the collective hand-wringing that would inevitably occur. Unfortunately, with the way the San Francisco 49ers' season has flamed out, it's almost inevitable that Harbaugh will cast his lot with the Wolverines.

 

With Harbaugh to Michigan, we'll have to deal with the inevitable "Michigan is back" chatter. The nausea factor will reach extreme levels. The Detroit media in particular is just clamoring for Michigan football to be relevant again, and we non-Michigan fans will simply have to weather the hype machine for at least a few weeks or perhaps months.

 

Back to Michigan State: the Spartan basketball team has had a rocky few weeks. The Eastern Michigan game was an inspired victory over a team that I still maintain is a contender for the MAC title. The Spartans handled the 2-3 zone with aplomb en route to a 86-66 victory. I was lucky enough to score tickets to the EMU game and brought my oldest son, who agreed to join me even though he's not much of a basketball fan.

 

The EMU game was followed up by a game against Texas Southern that was a polar opposite in terms of energy and urgency--and MSU couldn't make a shot to save its life. In some fairness to the Spartans, the Breslin Center (at least as it appeared on television) was a morgue and there was little energy from the fans for the team to feed upon. The crowd didn't come alive until Texas Southern took the lead with under two minutes left in regulation. It seemed like the sheer shock of the deficit woke the fans from their slumber. Unfortunately, the Spartans had already fallen permanently to sleep.

 

After the embarrassing loss to Texas Southern, which was easily the equal of Michigan's stunning defeat at the hands of New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), the Spartans bounced back with a win over The Citadel--a game that few saw because it wasn't on television.

 

MSU basketball opens up the Big Ten schedule in two days against 12-1 Maryland. The Terps' biggest wins are against Iowa State and Oklahoma State, with its only loss coming against Virginia. So not an overwhelmingly strong schedule for Maryland, but still a 12-1 record is nothing to take lightly.

 

Four days until MSU football's game against Baylor in the Cotton Bowl. I hope that Pat Narduzzi can leave Michigan State on a bright note with the Spartans' defense containing Baylor's "track meet on a football field" offense. I'm worried that MSU struggled against Oregon and Ohio State, two teams with similar offensive attacks as Baylor. My hope is that lessons have been learned from those two losses and will be applied to the Baylor game.