Tar Heels Maul Spartans

Watching the Michigan State-North Carolina college basketball game Wednesday night was painful … very painful. This Big Ten-ACC Challenge thing is a made-for-television event to fill in those normally dull weeks in November and December when big-time teams used to feast on the mid-major schools to pack up wins (much to the boredom of fans). I was, however, excited to watch the Spartans take on the top-ranked Tar Heels in an event that was moved to Ford Field in Detroit where officials kept their fingers crossed for a gigantic crowd that never really materialized. Something else never really materialized: competition for North Carolina. Now, I expected the Tar Heels to win. North Carolina is BY FAR the best team in college basketball that I’ve had a chance to see this season. I did, however, not expect to see MSU beaten as badly as it was beaten. By the end of the game, the Spartans appeared physically drained, mentally spent and flat-out tired. But, the damage was done long before that. Even in the early stages of the game, the Spartans missed layups, dropped easy passes, threw inexplicably-bad passes out of bounds. To be fair, MSU played without starting center Goran Suton and UNC seemed to hit pretty much every big shot it threw at the rim. By the way, UNC center Tyler Hansbrough is the real deal. I don’t know how good of a professional player he will be, but he is one of the best college players I’ve seen in quite some time. Some of MSU’s key players had trouble finishing plays and some of the players seemed to be in a sort of mental fog. The Spartans have far better talent than they showed against North Carolina and I expect MSU to be a team far better able to compete against UNC by the end of the season. The Spartans need to relax, get healthy, work on some team chemistry and FINISH shots that they are strangely not finishing. Better days are ahead for Coach Tom Izzo and the Spartans.