CLEVELAND – The way to the Sweet Sixteen for Utah now necessarily has to go through Rick Majerus’ stomach, which we all know is even more well rounded than Michigan State is as a basketball team.
“I have a little [NCAA] pool going, I do business like everybody else,” said the coach of the Utes. “Mine’s for a couple of pizzas and I have [Michigan State] winning.
“They are athletic, they can extend you at the perimeter, they have the drive game but it all reverts back to their rebounding and defensive presence. They rebound the long ball as well as anybody in the game.
“It’s fun to see a good team play that hard. They share the ball. They don’t have a discernible weakness. They are accustomed to their roles and they go to the offensive boards. They catch and shoot and take it off the dribble, and [Morris] Peterson can take it to a middle game as well. Then, they got you with the pick and roll as [A.J.] Granger can stop and stretch you.
“Mateen Cleaves reminds me of Quinn Buckner, he’s so strong. Their attitudes are great. You can see there is no internal strife. They are equal opportunity assassins.”
And Majerus’ eighth-seeded team, which made its coach feel “prouder than I was when we won the game that got us to the [1998] Final Four” by overcoming the second-half loss of center Nate Althoff and guard Jeremy Killion to squeak by St. Louis Thursday night, appears to have two equal opportunities at an upset this afternoon: slim and none.
“I cheated in first aid in college,” said Majerus, when asked to run down his injury report, “so I don’t know these things. I have this relationship with my trainers that they dress ’em and I play ’em and we’ve gotten along good.
“So I’ll do the best I can here. Jeremy is on crutches so I know he’s out. He’s in there crying and told him if he couldn’t be positive and optimistic don’t come around because we can’t have him dragging us down.
“He understands he just played his last competitive game, is now going to be one of those old YMCA players the rest of his life. He relished every moment and what an honor and privilege it was and it’s a shame.
“Althoff has an imbalance in his back that’s only going to be cured with rest. He went to see the Cavaliers’ acupuncturist today but he needs to sit two weeks. We’re sitting with seven scholarship players, one of which [forward Mike Puzey] has a broken leg with a stress fracture. I told him last night he’s playing until his foot falls off, because that’s all we got.
“I want to rally the troops, not take a woe-is-me posture. We gotta buck up. We know what the task is.
“If I could hold the ball and milk the clock I would. But we don’t really have a conventional point guard and we have guys playing out of position. With seven scholarship athletes, we can’t slow them down with a 2-2-1 press and I don’t think that’s a good idea anyway. You dance with what brought you here.”
