Illinois’ got next. DePaul has Kansas. Everybody’s happy.
By any sane estimate, the team to beat in the Big Ten next season will be Illinois now that Michigan State has snipped its last conference victory net for a while. Whether these Spartans get more valuable souvenirs than the one they again took from Illinois on Sunday, their reign as Big Ten bullies has ended at the United Center.
There was Illinois again, scurrying away to the comfort and small regret of second place while the Spartans, perpetual measuring stick and nemesis to the Illini, donned the laundry of champions, the caps, the shirts, the nets.
The senior Michigan State group of Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson and A.J. Granger is so familiar with the process they know where to stand and when to hand the scissors to the next net snipper, where to store the ladder and how to act pleased that these small prizes mean something in quantity if not quality.
“I told my team that championships are forever,” said Michigan State coach Tom Izzo. “They’ll remember this fondly one day.”
Something for Illinois to anticipate, a team flummoxed by youth as well as the Spartans, five out of six times the last three years. Someone from Champaign should have been taking notes on how to act like champions, for Illinois certainly looks like the next team up.
And while all of this was happening, DePaul’s Blue Demons, as Illinois losers in the conference tournament final, waited across town, wrapped in their own company and worry, for word on how their erratic but never uninteresting season would be rewarded.
More Top Picks Best Pilot Watches Aviation
As it turned out, DePaul learned just before Illinois that, if fate has a sense of humor, the two of them would meet at the point of each one’s greatest reasonable ambition, in the Sweet 16 of the East Regional.
The almost never misspoken Illini coach, Lon Kruger, had suggested that Illinois and DePaul might not sip from the clean side of the same collegiate cup, so if a game between the two should happen, in Syracuse of all places, this whole grotesque basketball grope might be worth it. Nothing quite like spite to warm the long nights far from home.
More likely, of course, DePaul will be long gone by then, having to defeat both Kansas and Duke before there is any need for Kruger to explain exactly what he meant. Illinois has a kinder route, inheriting Ivy League fodder Penn and then probably Florida, Kruger’s old school. Kruger is not counting out his team, estimating that in this year of non-bullies any one of 25 teams might win the national title.
“And we’re one of the top 25,” Kruger said.
Most likely for both Illinois and DePaul, Sunday will be as good as it gets. Both are back in the NCAA tournament, measurable steps forward, as well as a considerable relief for Illinois to be somewhere that Michigan State is not.
The No. 1 seed in the Midwest and a perfectly fine flag bearer for the Big Ten, Michigan State had about a half hour to celebrate at the United Center, rushing from the shower and gathering to watch on TV where they would be placed and who would next be taking aim at them.
“We’re the ones with the bull’s-eye on our chest,” Cleaves said.
The cost of being better is the lack of relief from expectation, and while anything either Illinois or DePaul accomplish will be a bonus from here, Michigan State must go beyond last year’s Final Four loss.
“Last year we just got our foot in the door,” Peterson said. “Now we want to kick it open and see what’s inside.”
The good news for Illinois is that Cleaves, Peterson and Granger will be gone when next they meet, and what is behind that core MSU trio seems not to match up with what Illinois has returning, which is simply everyone.
Brian Cook, the freshman center for Illinois, looks like the real stuff, a lottery pick if he gets stronger. Freshman point guard Frank Williams, still not always playing well with others, is getting better, as no less than Cleaves noticed.
Without Cory Bradford, Illinois is so lost it needs its own milk carton. Bradford had to leave in the first half with a broken nose, courtesy of the elbow of MSU forward Andre Hutson. When Bradford returned, his nose looking like a full udder, Illinois had gone from a point up to eight down.
“We kept our heads up,” Bradford said.
Just a suggestion. Next time, duck.