Michigan State’s latest Sweet 16 run was anything but a formality

To listen to the way some tell it, Tom Izzo and Michigan State exist to bring a bit of certainty to the otherwise frantic, combustible format of the NCAA Tournament. When the Spartans upset second-seeded Virginia to reach the Sweet 16 for the seventh time in eight years, the refrains were familiar.

Never bet against Tom Izzo in March! How can you give an Izzo team a No. 7 seed? With Izzo in control, this isn’t even an upset.

Michigan State isn’t like most of college basketball’s best programs, and it extends beyond the Spartans’ remarkable consistency in the postseason. Schools like Kentucky, Kansas, Duke and North Carolina are almost playing by a different set of rules with the ability to recruit NBA-level one-and-done talent every year. It doesn’t work that way for Michigan State.

Since Magic Johnson left after his sophomore season to become the No. 1 pick in 1979, Michigan State has only had five players leave school early. The only one-and-done was Zach Randolph, and he came all the way back in 2001. Instead, Izzo gets the job done with players who might be a little too small or a little too slow. It’s what makes Travis Trice something like the perfect Spartan.

Trice was incredible for Michigan State on Sunday, going off for 13 of his first team’s first 15 points to shellshock Virginia from the opening tip. The type of rugged, physical defense that defines the Cavaliers has overwhelmed bigger and better players than the 6-foot, 170-pound senior point guard, but it was clear from the onset of the game that Trice wasn’t scared.

The truth is that this was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Michigan State. Adreian Payne and Gary Harris had gone to the NBA, and point guard Keith Appling had graduated. Appling wasn’t an NBA talent but he was a great college player -- a four-year starter who carried on MSU’s fine tradition of excellent point guard play.

Appling was a freshman the year Kalin Lucas was a senior; Lucas took over for Drew Neitzel. It all goes back to Mateen Cleaves, the lead guard who powered the Spartans to the national championship plus another Final Four at the turn of the century. As Appling exited the program, Izzo brought on Lourawls Nairn to be the point guard of the future. Nairn, ranked No. 73 overall by ESPN, was Izzo’s only top 100 recruit in 2014.

That swell of circumstance made Trice a caretaker, the point guard who would transition the program from Appling to Nairn. While Trice was Ohio’s Player of the Year as a high school senior, most believe the main reason Izzo even brought on the three-star recruit was because he was close with AAU teammate Branden Dawson.

Trice has battled a lot in his time in East Lansing, most notably a mystery illness possibly related to his brain in 2012 that Izzo called “the scariest thing that I’ve ever been involved with here.“ It sunk Trice down to 150 pounds and made basketball an obvious afterthought. He finally got healthy last season and became the Spartans’ sixth man. This season, his teammates voted him team MVP.

Denzel Valentine is still Michigan State’s best player, and Dawson might be its most important. There’s no denying that Trice has been vital throughout the season, though, and it was never more evident than against Virginia.

With Virginia making a comeback bid late in the second half, Trice delivered two haymakers. Michigan State’s lead was down to five points with under eight minutes left when Trice drove to the center of the lane and pulled up to swish a mid-range jumper. With under three minutes left and MSU leading by five, Trice fired a deep three for the game’s biggest basket:

When the game ended, Trice had 23 points and Michigan State had a 60-54 victory.

For as much as there’s an instinct to chalk up Izzo’s March success as a formality, these Spartans making it this far really is an accomplishment. Virginia was one of the best teams in the country all season, while MSU never looked like it could even be the second-best team in the Big Ten before the conference tournament. The Spartans just don’t have the big men they’re accustomed to having. Matt Costello is a big body who tries hard, but he isn’t at the level of players like Paul Davis or Goran Suton from Izzo teams of years past.

Trice isn’t supposed to be Appling, Lucas and Cleaves, either. He almost seemed to get the reins by default for a team that was supposed to be in transition. Of course, even a down year for Michigan State has a way of including a Sweet 16 run. With No. 1 Villanova and No. 2 Virginia now out of the East region, Michigan State might as well be the favorite to reach the Final Four as a seven seed. It’s what Izzo does this time of year.