UNC will be heavy favorites
Wow, Ford Field will be the Mecca of college basketball on Monday night, and it will be special with over 71,000 people in attendance.
North Carolina and Michigan State met here earlier this season and it was blowout city ... a 35-point win.
My friends, this is a very different Spartans team. Talk about momentum, beating USC, Kansas, Louisville and Connecticut in a four-game tournament span. I had this team a few times this season, including a game against Purdue, and this is a more mature club than I saw earlier.
Tom Izzo's club is playing for the entire state of Michigan. There is so much on their shoulders as this is a state that has been hit by hard times. You could feel the emotion when you walked into the arena. You could sense it seeing so many fans in green walking in the streets around Ford Field.
This game is playing right into the hands of Izzo. I can hear him talking to him team. He will tell them that nobody is going to give them a chance, that the experts will point to North Carolina's impressive performance against Villanova, that the Tar Heels were number one in America.
You can bet Izzo will say that people will point to the first meeting, the 35-point knockout. This is a team with a different mindset, and Izzo will tell his squad they can shock America. He will play it up to his team in an inspirational way, telling them the odds are against them. He may even point to 1983, when Jimmy V and N.C. State were given no chance Against Phi Slama Jama, a.k.a. the Houston Cougars. You couldn't tell the Wolfpack that it was impossible that night.
He could point to Duke's 30-point loss to UNLV, only to come back that next season and score shock city in the national semifinals.
OK, OK. It is a great story. I still think North Carolina will cut down the nets Monday night. I picked the Tar Heels before the season and their offensive efficiency against Villanova was so impressive. You can bet that Izzo and company will put up a great fight but Detroit is a blue collar area and these kids from Michigan State will scrap and claw, baby!
