The Big Dance in the Big D

You heard it here first sportsfans, MSU v. UNC! Monday night at 9:21 pm the biggest game of the 2009 college basketball season will be underway in Detroit. As stated last week, emotions will be running high for the Michigan State Spartans and again, we’ll see if that will be enough to take home the Championship. MSU, coming off a big upset win over the #1 seeded Huskies of Connecticut (UConn was ranked #2 back at the opening of the NCAA season), will be playing what is essentially a home game against the #1 seeded Tarheels (also #1 at the opening of the season). To prepare you for the game, I would like to give you a run down of the matchups to expect for the Final Round.

Guards

Michigan State

Durrell Summers and Chris Allen are both averaging 8.5 PPG and around 1 assist each. They also are both around the 30% range when it comes to 3-point FG’s. As starting guards, this is not going to be nearly enough to put away UNC in the National Championship game. If Summers and Allen don’t have breakthrough games, they just aren’t going to get it done against a high scoring Tarheels team. Running a three guard offense, the biggest name on the court for Michigan State is Kalin Lucas. Lucas is just a cut above Summers and Allen, averaging about 15 points and 5 assists per game.

North Carolina

Ty Lawson is obviously known as one of the fastest and most talented guards in the college rankings today and surpasses both of the Spartans guards statistically by himself. On top of that, his counter-part Wayne Ellington also matches the two Spartan guards in points and assists on his own. With their fast paced, high scoring abilities, Michigan State can either hope to keep up, try to slow it down or just hope for both Lawson and Ellington to have an off day (which is highly unlikely with the nature of the game at hand).

Advantage:

The advantage at guard goes to UNC. Although the Spartans have three guards, totaling up points and assists based on averages, the Tarheel guards surpass the Spartans in both categories playing with a natural two guard set. The advantage also goes to the Tarheels by matching their opponent in that sense and also causing mismatches down low for Tyler Hansbrough at the forward position.

Forwards

Michigan State

Running their three guard set leaves Raymar Morgan at the forward position by himself in this matchup perspective. Morgan is averaging 10 points and 6 boards a game. Again, Michigan State will be in a lot of trouble if they can not control the tempo of the game and match UNC point for point in possesions early.

North Carolina

North Carolina will have Danny Green and Deon Thompson starting at forward for the game. Although Tyler Hansbrough is listed as a forward on the roster, he is playing the #5 spot on the floor and will control the paint. Green and Thompson are matched up almost equally to Raymar Morgan on the other side of the floor, but two big men are better than one when it comes to boxing out and rebounding for possesions.

Advantage:

Again, I’m going to have to go with UNC for the advantage here due to a two to one matchup at the position and the equality in the numbers produced by both teams.

Center

Michigan State

Goran Suton is averaging about 10 points and 9 rebounds a game. For a starting center matching up against a player of the year candidate he’s going to have to double his rebounding average at least to give his team a chance to win this game.

North Carolina

Tyler Hansbrough, the best big man left in the tournament (after Blake Griffin and the Sooners were eliminated) is only going to have one job during this game, continue to do what he has done all season, averaging 20 points and 9 rebounds a game will only need to be consistent.

Advantage:

A no brainer gives the advantage to UNC and Hansbrough and makes it a clean sweep for UNC to control the advantage on every inch of the floor for this game.

Prediction

UNC has the advantage at every position on the Court, however, I’m going to stay with Michigan State to win the game solely based on emotion and heart. I know UNC beat Michigan State by 35 earlier this season, I know they are trying to recover from losing in the tournament last year, but as I stated last week, this game belongs to the Spartans. With Detroit in such turmoil and the Spartans playing in front of their home crowd fans, anything can happen.

Prepare for a game that is going to come down to the wire and be won with true grit and determination. UNC will take the last shot from just inside half court and Ty Lawson is going to see his childhood dream come to an end in a sad way. Rooting for the comeback of an entire city in distress, the Spartans are going to give the people of Detroit one night to stand up, be proud and get excited for themselves in a tough time.