Twenty-Twenty-Twenty-Four Hours to Go: It's Final Four Eve!

but nothing, including playing top-seeds, has prepared them for this. I’m never “confident” about these games; it’s not in my nature. However, I’m more confident than I was for the UTenn game. If I had to put $500 on a national champion (enough so that I wasn’t betting with sympathies), I’d still go MSU. I think this is our year.
And honestly, I was strangely confident about UConn last year, much more so than USC, Kansas, or Louisville, actually.

This week has been torture. I’m considering going to the movies tomorrow afternoon or something just to forcibly occupy myself until tip-off. I don’t really want to wake up at 9am and pace the room and look at messageboards for nine hours.

Is TOC thinking about opening a chat thread early on for comments and updates throughout the day? Y’know, in case I am pacing the room and looking at boards for nine hours.

is that Butler appears to be very difficult to fluster. I don’t think the scene nor our team will throw them.

The whole thing is on Korie. If he can get the ball where it needs to go and knock down the occasional jumper, we’ll be fine. If the Turnover Monster shows up, look out.

I think Korie is up to the challenge. He was one of our better players against UConn. He likes the big lights.

And Butler, despite playing Syracuse and K-State, hasn’t seen anyone like Draymond.

I’d like to be sedated as well. Let’s get to 6:07 tomorrow already.

Fun setting for pep rally—outdoors in Pan Am square. Just posted photo on twitter. Whole team showed up with Izzo. Seemed very loose, FWIW. Izzo had to yell at Sparty for goofing around with players at one point.

Dahlman, Green, and Morgan spoke. Draymond talked about going out and “winning a national championship.” Raymar promised to go after a double-double. Izzo had noted that the team has won every game he’s done that in.

Now that’s some ups.

There’s nobody left that scares me (Kansas and, to a lesser extent, Kentucky did). And when we aren’t at a major talent disadvantage, I like our chances against anyone in April.

Butler’s going to give us a tough game, but I think we will pull it off. May well come down to how they handle the spectacle of being a mid-major (even one of the best mids) at a hometown Final Four. I suspect they’ll come out either a little too amped or a bit nervous, and we’ll be able to get out to an early lead. Butler doesn’t strike me as a great comeback team – slow pace and low offensive and defensive efficiencies make it tough to make up ground whether it’s the opponent who needs to or you.

Also won’t hurt if the refs know better than to fall for Howard’s flops.

I think they’re is a definite difference between our appearance in the Final Four last year and Butler’s “home town” FF.

After reading some comments from Stampede Blue, it seems like casual fans in Indiana are turning Butler’s appearance into something about Indiana and Indianapolis instead of Butler’s own achievement.

I don’t think it’s hard for a public school with an enrollment of 47K (and over 400K living alumni) that routinely sells out a 14K arena to have 50 to 60K actual fans at the FF in Detroit.

I do think that it might be hard for a private school with an enrollment of 4,500 that rarely sells out it’s 10K fieldhouse (avg. 7K) to fill this FF with actual fans.

I think Butler has a great team (they are FAVORED in this game) and are a great story.

That being said, I hope we win by 70. I’m not a fan of “walmart wolervines” or ND’s “subway alumni” so I hope MSU can quiet another mouth breathing “fanbase”.

……I wana watch my spartans.

I’m confident that playing in the Big Ten has prepared us to play against a strong defensive team. It isn’t as though we haven’t seen good defense before. Not to get all spiritual, but as this team has overcome Lucas’ injury and has battled with assorted injuries, I have sensed a presence on the court that is beyond the five guys in sneakers. There is a cohessive energy that has carried this team. Their whole is now greater than the sum of their parts. I believe that energy will be there again today, and the Spartans will prevail.

Seriously though, first interesting tidbit of the day for me:
http://noise.typepad.com/hey_joe/2010/04/are-you-here-from-where.html

One more thing on matchups. As seen in the tipoff, Delvon Roe said he’s starting on Veasley, with Morgan checking Hayward right away. Foul trouble is always the big thing with Morgan, but if he can avoid it, I think tonight is the night people realize just how valuable he is as a defender.

First, the idea of Raymar Morgan foul trouble in the is game gives me hives. That would be a HUGE advantage-Butler on both ends.
Second, Nix on Howard (I assume), Morgan on Heyward, and Roe on Veasley? Well, someone is going to have the opportunity to exploit a mismatch on that last one. I don’t know if that match-up will hold when MSU has the ball. Might see them put Heyward on Roe and Veasley against Morgan.