The names and the uniforms are the same, the rosters are almost the same, with a new notable exceptions. UVA and Michigan State played one of the better games of the 2014 NCAA Tournament, and look to add another chapter to a budding postseason rivalry on Sunday in Charlotte.
The Spartans led the Sweet Sixteen matchup by seven with 5:25 to go before Virginia, the top seed in the East Region, began to chip away, going on a 7-0 run over the next 3:54, finally tying the game at 51 on a three from the left corner by reserve Justin Anderson.
But Adreian Payne got free on a pick-and-pop and hit a three with Mike Tobey’s hand in his face from the left wing with 1:31 to go, and after a missed Malcolm Brogdon layup, a Branden Dawson dunk with 53 seconds to go gave Michigan State a five-point lead.
Brogdon and Joe Harris each made threes in the final minute to keep the game in hailing distance, but State closed out the game going 5-of-6 at the line to preserve a 61-59 Sparty win that still stings for the 2014-2015 Cavaliers.
UVA starters Harris and Akil Mitchell have graduated, as have Michigan State starters Payne, Gary Harris and Keith Appling. But Brogdon (17 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals) and Dawson (24 points, 10 rebounds) are back, as are several guys who were more role players last year, and have moved into more prominent roles.
Like Anderson, who had three points and three minutes in 21 minutes off the bench in last year’s game, now UVA’s second-leading scorer (12.4 points per game). And Travis Trice, who scored five points in 25 minutes off the bench for Michigan State in the 2014 Sweet Sixteen game, and is now MSU’s leading scorer (14.8 points per game).
What a difference a year can make, right?
“Every game’s a new game, everybody reacts differently. It all comes down to the match-ups and how you match up,” Michigan State Tom Izzo told reporters on Saturday on the eve of the teams’ third-round matchup in the 2015 NCAA Tournament. “My biggest concern is how we match up with the size of their perimeter people more than their inside people. Their inside people are strong and athletic and good, but their perimeter people, not only in height but in girth, they’re big, they’re big. We’re not as big there, so I’ve got to figure out a way to, I don’t know, work around that.”
Virginia is a step up in the post this year over where it was last year, with Anthony Gill (11.6 points per game, 6.5 rebounds per game, 59.1% field-goal percentage) and Darion Atkins (7.6 points per game, 5.7 rebounds per game, 51.7% field-goal percentage) playing efficient offensive basketball and both being named to one of the two All-ACC defensive teams voted on by media and ACC coaches.
Post depth comes from Mike Tobey (7.0 points per game, 5.4 rebounds per game, 51.7% field-goal percentage), whose minutes have been limited of late because he is not the defender that Gill and Atkins are.
Tobey’s ability to overcome a string of subpar outings could be key for Virginia, which seemed to struggle defensively in the second half of the loss to Michigan State when Gill went down with a sprained ankle with 16 minutes to go, and Tobey was forced into extended action and had trouble guarding the Spartans’ bigs on pick-and-rolls and pick-and-fades.
“That match-up was hard for us, we just didn’t — Dawson had his way, they have Payne, they have Dawson and they have very good players again. Anthony rolled his ankle in that game and we had a hard time matching up, so we need Darion and Anthony and certainly Mike, Mike didn’t play as much in his last game but this is more of a traditional size, traditional game,” UVA coach Tony Bennett said.
“Our fours and fives have to be right in this game, because it’s such a physical rebounding game, there’s a lot of ball screen, off ball screen set, they’ve got to be sharp and showing and they’ve got to be engaged in what it will take from a physical standpoint,” Bennett said.
The UVA backcourt is also different than it was this time last year, even if the actors are largely the same. The loss of Harris led to the elevation of Anderson, the 2014 ACC Sixth Man of the Year, into the starting lineup, and through 21 games, the 6’6” junior played like an All-America candidate, before going down on Feb. 7 with a broken finger that, with an emergency appendectomy on March 5 contributing as well, kept Anderson on the sidelines for more than five weeks.
After two scoreless outings off the bench in the ACC Tournament last week, Anderson looked to be near midseason form in Virginia’s 79-67 win over Belmont on Friday, scoring 15 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the field and 6-of-7 shooting from the foul line, and also pulling down five rebounds, in 26 minutes off the bench.
“He looked a lot better the other night, and I know what that’s like, because we had Payne and Dawson last year, missed eight and nine games at the end of the year, and then getting them back is a whole another story,” Izzo said of his 2013-2014 team, which went into the 2014 Sweet Sixteen as a four seed after a late-season stumble that was largely the result of the missed time with Payne and Dawson.
Their return sparked Michigan State, and Virginia’s fortunes could certainly ride on Anderson providing a similar spark Sunday, and with a win possibly beyond.
With the hours counting down to the game, whatever the final outcome, it looks on paper at least to have the potential to match last year’s classic in terms of intensity between two teams that do it, ahem, the right way.
“We’re similar programs, they run more than us, of course. They do different things, but I think we value a lot of the same things,” Bennett said. “Like we talked about, you mentioned blue collar, just a tough mindset, kind of that idea, the whole – the cohesiveness, touching greatness in concert with others, you need that. And you have to have talent, there’s no question. You guys can see that in their team, you can see it in our individuals, but that ability to try to do something special and go beyond requires a level of toughness on both ends of the floor, and guys that have bought into that so I think we both subscribe to that idea.”
– Story by Chris Graham
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