EAST LANSING, Mich. — This is what it comes down to for Michigan State on Sunday:
Have Michigan beat first-place Indiana in Ann Arbor, and then beat Northwestern at the Breslin Center in a game that will tip off at 6 p.m., about the time the Wolverines and Hoosiers wrap it up.
Wins by U-M and MSU would give both a share of the Big Ten’s regular season championship with Indiana and Ohio State — if the Buckeyes beat Illinois in Columbus on Sunday afternoon. The Hoosiers currently rule the roost at 13-4, while the Wolverines, Spartans and Buckeyes are 12-5.
Michigan State’s defense paved the way for a 58-43 win over Wisconsin on Thursday night that knocked the Badgers out of championship contention.
Now, beating Northwestern, which is 4-13 and 11th in the standings, should be easy.
Rooting for Michigan? Well, that’s not so easy. It’s like the Hatfields giving the McCoys a standing ovation or Bostonians gathering at Fenway Park to chant, “Let’s go, Yankees!”
But if the Spartans want to share the regular season title for the second straight season, they need some help from their estranged conference cousins. The two schools shared first place last season with Ohio State, when they all finished at 13-5 before MSU won the conference tournament.
After the crowd of reporters dispersed from point guard Keith Appling’s locker, I asked him if he could root for Michigan considering what it could mean for the Spartans.
He looked up, smiled and said, “The only team we root for here is Michigan State. And that’s just the way I feel about it. We have business to take care of that’s more important to think about. Later, in the NCAA Tournament, we can root for all of the Big Ten teams.”
Appling scored 14 of his game-high 19 points in the second half. That was one point more than he scored in the last three games combined — all losses that knocked the Spartans out of the driver’s seat and have left them needing help to finish first.
What did guard Travis Trice, who provided spark off the bench with six of the team’s Big Ten season-high 16 steals, think about having to root for the Wolverines?
“The only team we really pull for is Michigan State,” said Trice. “Michigan State is the only team we pull for.”
Hmm, I’m sensing a party line here.
“If one of our players pulled for their rival,” said Spartans coach Tom Izzo, “Jud (Heathcote) would come out of his (grave). Well, he’s not there yet. But he would roll out of bed and abuse me.”
Heathcote, 85, was Izzo’s mentor after hiring him at Michigan State. Heathcote’s dealing with joint problems, a bad hip and replacement surgeries, but remains of sound mind and can still spit nails at rivals.
Reporters at the post-game press conference laughed along with Izzo on his remarks about Heathcote, whom he loves like a father.
“I’m going to root for Michigan State and Derrick Nix on Sunday,” Izzo said. “Hopefully, everyone will have a good Big Ten tourney and then we can all root for each other (in the NCAA Tournament).”
Since that sounded an awful lot like what his players were saying — minus the plug for senior center Nix playing his final home game — I asked Appling whether they were following Izzo’s party line on rooting for the Wolverines.
Appling smiled and insisted that it was just the way he felt.
But here’s some interesting food for thought: Should Indiana beat Michigan, it would allow Michigan State to finish second to the Hoosiers, coached by Izzo’s good friend and former assistant coach, Tom Crean. It would more importantly put the Spartans ahead of the Wolverines in the standings should they avert an upset loss to Northwestern.
Two long-time Izzo observers both believed he would rather finish ahead of Michigan than share a conference regular season championship — which would be his eighth since replacing Heathcote for the 1995-96 season and eventually surpassing him for the most wins in MSU history.
Izzo said he will “be honest” with his team when he learns the outcome of the Michigan-Indiana game, but said he “didn’t plan on watching much of it.”
Trice said “if we have time, we’ll watch it,” and tried to downplay it.
But not a Spartan would say they were rooting for the Wolverines on Sunday. If that’s cutting off your nose to spite your face, so be it.
