SHEEHAN: Michigan State didn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention
MSU showed it's identity the first weekend, and now UConn will test how real it is
I’ll be honest – I thought I’d be over it by now.
That’s usually how this works. You get your 24 hours, maybe you stretch it to 48 if it’s a weekend like that, and then you turn the page. You have to. That’s March. That’s the job.
But I’m sitting here early the following week and I’m not over it. Not the way Michigan State played, not the way that defense looked, and definitely not the way Tom Izzo keeps doing this to people who somehow still doubt him.
And yeah, I see it – because if you’re outside of this thing, if you’re not living inside Spartan Nation, there’s still this weird disconnect with Izzo. There’s still this conversation that pops up every March about what he isn’t, or what he hasn’t done lately, or how long it’s been since the last title.
And every year, like clockwork, he drags another team into the second weekend and reminds everyone exactly who he is.
Seventeen Sweet Sixteens.
Twenty-eight straight NCAA tournaments.
And somehow, we’re still doing this dance where people act surprised.
It doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t make sense when you consider the reality of what Michigan State is working with compared to some of the programs they’re beating. It doesn’t make sense when you look at the consistency. It doesn’t make sense when you realize that for a lot of fans, the tournament doesn’t even feel like it starts until this point.
I heard it said this weekend, and it stuck with me – it must be pretty nice to be a Michigan State fan, because your season basically starts in the Sweet Sixteen.
That’s not normal, though. That’s Izzo.
And the thing is, this wasn’t some fluky run into the second weekend. This wasn’t a team catching fire for 48 hours and hanging on.
This looked like Michigan State in March.
It looked like a team that knew exactly who it was, what it could control, and how it wanted to win.
Because if you go back to that Louisville game, the thing that jumps out isn’t even the shot-making. It’s not the box score. It’s not the individual performances, even though there were plenty of them. It’s how locked in they were defensively on short notice.
Less than 48 hours to prepare, and they looked completely assignment-sound. Every coverage felt intentional. Every rotation made sense. You could see it in the details – who they fought over on ball screens, who they sagged off, how the weak side tagged, how quickly they recovered.
A lot more past the break.
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