INDIANAPOLIS -- In the moments after Michigan State outlasted Louisville last Sunday in the NCAA tournament's East Regional final, Michigan State senior point guard Travis Trice II broke down and cried.
No one around Michigan State's program faulted Trice for it. Those who know him were just surprised.
Trice's teammates had never seen him cry before. Not after big wins. Not after gut-wrenching losses. Not after any of his injuries. Not even after the mysterious brain infection early in his sophomore year that almost killed him.
Last Sunday, though, Trice had his worst shooting game of the NCAA tournament and Michigan State still found a way to advance to the Final Four for the first time since 2010. He still had 17 points, five rebounds and five assists. He hugged everyone around him, took his turn cutting the Carrier Dome nets, thought about how the night before his father and brothers had won Ohio's big-school state championship and that the whole family would be headed to see him play in the Final Four.
So he let it all out. He cried. Finally.
"I'm mad at myself that I did," Trice admitted.
His parents have cried a little over the last month. Maybe a lot. They've also smiled a lot, too.
Travis Trice -- the father of Travis II -- has been to as many Michigan State games as possible. Coaching Huber Heights Wayne High School, near Dayton, to the Ohio state title meant he couldn't make all of them. But the family was there in Chicago three weeks ago when Michigan State made the Big Ten tournament final before losing to Wisconsin, and Julie Trice flew to Charlotte to see her oldest son play against Georgia in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Mar. 20. She flew back the next morning to see her husband and other two sons, D'Mitrik and Isaiah, win a high school regional championship the next day. At 1 a.m. on Mar. 22, Julie and Travis and two family friends left Huber Heights to drive seven hours or so to Charlotte.
Virginia and Michigan State tipped off at 12:15 p.m.
That Michigan State is still playing -- a No. 7 seed alongside three No. 1 seeds in the Final Four and paired with Duke in Saturday night's first game at Lucas Oil Stadium -- is a bit of a spoiler in regards to how the Virginia that game went. Last Friday night, Huber Heights Wayne went to overtime in a state semifinal against defending state champion Lakewood St. Edward at 10:07 p.m., the exact time Michigan State tipped against Oklahoma in Syracuse.
Julie Trice knows because she was in the stands at the Huber Heights Wayne game, anxiously checking her phone with one hand and nervously pulling her hair out with the other.
Before this season, Travis Trice II had started eight games in his college career, all last season.
This week, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski called Trice II "the best player in this tournament, on any team. I don't think there's a kid playing better anywhere."
After three years as a role player, pushing Michigan State to the Final Four is a heck of a way for Trice to go out. Trice is averaging almost 20 points and four assists through four NCAA tournament games, during which he's played 154 of a possible 165 minutes.
Like his parents, he'll sleep some other month.
Travis Trice II is actually No. 1 of five Trice children. D'Mitrik will be playing college basketball somewhere next season. Isaiah has two years left at Wayne. Olivia is headed to high school, and Acelynne is six. "Ace," as her parents call her, is a seasoned road-trip veteran. She brings books, her iPad and headphones; her father said she's more likely to sleep during a game than she is in transit.
She's a Trice. She's used to the travel.
Mountain Dew is Julie Trice's caffeine of choice -- and after the last five or so weeks, perhaps an endorsement deal is in order. About 90 minutes after the state title game last Saturday night, Julie and Travis drove almost seven hours to Syracuse.
Somewhere along the 250 or so miles from East Lansing to Indianapolis this week, Travis Trice II admitted he got caught up again. There were no tears this time, but there was some reflection.
And much appreciation.
"Just driving in here, going through this, all the (interviews), all the things we've had to do, I'm appreciative of it," he said. "Everything I've been through for the past four years makes this that much more memorable."
Said Michigan State coach Tom Izzo: "Travis weighed a buck-50 when he started. He got up to about 172 or 173 and then that summer (before his sophomore year) he got really sick. It was a virus of some kind, they didn't know. I was worried about his life for a while and it totaled him for the whole summer and he went down I think to 148 pounds.
"Then the next summer he had a couple injuries, too. He had a concussion. When you miss that much time, you can't get stronger, either. So this (last) summer, if you looked at the spring, summer and fall, he had the best summer ever and I think I wore him down a little bit by the middle of December because we just played him to death at the point, guarding the other team's best player.
"I can't say enough about the job he's done but he has done it the old-fashioned way. He's earned it. He's a gym rat, his dad's a coach, his mother was an athlete. Great family."
That virus first went undiagnosed. Doctors were baffled. Travis Trice II was always tired, struggling to maintain weight and trying to fight through it. Weeks passed before he called his mother and admitted he wasn't sure what day it was because he'd been sleeping 16 hours at a time.
"I wasn't sure I was going to live," Trice II admitted.
Finally, the Trices got something resembling an answer, that it was a mysterious brain infection. Trice II got treatments, and he steadily got better.
"The scary part was just not knowing," his father said. "Travis felt burdened, like it was somehow his fault. He tried to fight it alone until he just couldn't fight it anymore."
Maybe it's that experience that's helped him become such a calming yet commanding force for this Michigan State team, a team that lost to Texas Southern at home in December but is still playing this weekend. Maybe it's being a coach's son. Maybe it's just a burning desire to keep this run going. A hot team with the tournament's hottest player has won this thing before, and it was UConn and Shabazz Napier that derailed Michigan State in last year's tournament.
Perhaps Izzo said it best: "It's been strange some of the things he's gone through. But he's been on a mission; all these guys have. If Travis is healthy, I'm healthy."
The Trices think back to 10:07 last Friday, and to the suitcases that stay packed and the pillows that stay in the car and think maybe this last month has just been meant to be.
Is there a better explanation?
"We just believe this is already written," Travis Trice said. "The way Two has kept his calm out there...everybody has their own way but I know that you can teach that.
"Always the underdog. His whole life, he's always heard that he's too small, too slow, whatever it is. Here he is. And like we always say, we aren't just happy to be here. You don't go to Michigan State just to participate."
Sometime last week, someone tried to chart the miles the Trices have traveled this month for basketball games. Even through a bunch of discussion and some pretty advanced math, one trip got left out.
So they went back to guessing, and to rehashing, and to planning. This one was easy.
Indianapolis is only about 90 minutes from home.
"This is a home game," Julie said. "It felt like 90 seconds."
Next month, the Trices might get new tires.
And maybe even get some sleep.
