WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Tick, tick, tick. Brick, brick, brick.
Imagine receiving an invitation to The Dance, and leaving your shoes home. Imagine preparing your team for four days for a first-round game in the East Region against Michigan State, and your team shows up as the Washington Generals.
Welcome to Tom Crean’s worst nightmare.
Master beating pupil is one thing, but to go out like this was quite another.
Crean’s Marquette Golden Eagles were bludgeoned 61-49 last night by Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans because they decided to go the first 9:10 without a single point.
They trailed 14-0 before David Cubillan drained a trey, and the Spartans were showing no mercy.
“You’re trying to beat them 50-0 if you can,” Spartans’ star guard Drew Neitzel said. “You’re trying to bury them even more.”
The Eagles trailed 30-18 at the half because they shot 4-for-19 (21.1 percent) from the field and failed to make a single two-point basket. The Michigan State lead ballooned to 47-27 before the Spartans coasted to the end, when James hit a 3-ball to make it 57-49 with 36 seconds left.
“We really shrunk the gaps and forced them to take outside shots,” Neitzel said.
The Spartans’ reward is a matchup against home-crowd favorite North Carolina.
The loss of 6-11 Idong Ibok to a dislocated left elbow will cause Izzo great consternation against the Carolina big men. “It’s gonna be a problem for us,” Izzo said.
UNC 86, E. Kentucky 65
Emotion ruled the last game of the East Region when long before top-seeded North Carolina blew out Eastern Kentucky, the Tar Heels had experienced a dramatic swing in emotion.
News broke about an hour before the game that Francis Baker, the sister of Tar Heels coach Roy Williams, had died. Then fans in the Memorial Coliseum, many wearing Carolina powder blue, erupted when the score of the West Region game between Duke and Virginia Commonwealth was posted on the scoreboard: VCU 79, Duke 77.
The Tar Heels jumped out to a 22-3 lead and led 39-15 before Williams began mixing starters with reserves. Eastern Kentucky cut it to 47-35 at halftime and pulled within four in the second half before the Tar Heels pulled away again. – Lenn Robbins
