NCAA Tourney: Michigan State Returns To Final Four, Tops Tennessee In Thriller

<div>Ronald Clements – AHN Sports Correspondent</div>
<p>St. Louis, MO, United States (AHN) – Korie Lucious had a sarcastic request for Tennessee’s Scotty Hopson regarding a pair of key three throws.</p>
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"I told him, ‘I need one of these to come off [the rim], and if you can, maybe both of them,’" the Michigan State guard explained. "He made the first one, so I told him again, ‘I need this one.’ He missed, thank God."</p>
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Hopson’s first free throw tied things at 69-69 with 11 seconds remaining in Sunday’s NCAA Midwest Regional Final.</p>
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Michigan State made a free throw at the other end from Raymar Morgan, then held off Tennessee for a 70-69 victory at the Edward Jones Dome.</p>
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With the ball near the foul stripe, Draymond Green found the 6-foot-8 Morgan under the hoop.</p>
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Morgan was hacked by J.P. Prince, and went to the line.</p>
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After making the first for his 13th point, he intentionally missed the second and Tennessee’s Brian Williams grabbed his ninth rebound.</p>
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With 1.6 seconds remaining, the Volunteers got the ball to Prince, whose final shot came up short.</p>
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"It was just tough," Prince said. "One second you’re trying to get the ball, you just want to shoot it perfect, but you have to rush.</p>
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"You don’t want it to come down to a half-court shot. You’re just hoping for a prayer with that. I didn’t make it, but that’s what it came down to."</p>
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Michigan State (28-8) will play Butler (32-4), also a No. 5 seed in a national semifinal Saturday in Indianapolis. It is just the third time two teams seeded fifth or lower will meet in the Final Four.</p>
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Had Baylor defeated Duke in Sunday’s late game, it would have been just the third Final Four without a single No. 1 seed.</p>
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It happened in 1980 and again in 2006, when 11th-seeded George Mason made its Cinderella run to the Final Four.</p>
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"This is a bizarre year," said Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, who becomes the seventh coach in NCAA history to reach the Final Four six times. "The two teams we played were great, but I loved Georgetown and Kansas throughout the year. Ohio State was a very good team. I don’t know how many of those teams lose if it’s best-out-of-three or five, but that’s the excitement of this tournament.</p>
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"Usually some 1s and maybe a 2 are a notch above the rest. But from two and a half to maybe seven or eight sometimes, there is a lot of parity."</p>
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The Vols (28-9) struck first on Sunday with a 3-pointer from Bobby Maze. Michigan State got a Durrell Summers bucket on its first possession, but Tennessee answered with a Wayne Chism trey to take an early 6-2 lead.</p>
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Chism sank another 3-pointer two possessions later to give Tennessee an 11-6 lead with 17:32 remaining. The Volunteers were perfect on their first four shots, but a turnover on the fifth possession allowed Summers to tie things at 11-11.</p>
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Tennessee made its first six shots, punctuated by an alley-oop from Bobby Maze to Prince.</p>
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But the Spartans hung right with the Vols, going 6-for-8 from the floor, and forcing two turnovers to remain tied at 16-16 five minutes into the game.</p>
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"We didn’t go a great job, and gave them some shots uncontested," Izzo said. "The big key for us was that we weathered that storm."</p>
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After Tennessee finally missed a shot, a Summers dunk on a back-door pass from Draymond Green gave the Spartans their first lead. He finished with 13 points.</p>
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The game was tied at 21-21 nine minutes in as the teams were a combined 16 of 22 from the floor, including 7-for-7 from behind the arc.</p>
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Tennessee finished the half shooting 56 percent and 6 of 9 on 3-pointers. The Spartans were at 48 percent, with 2 treys on 9 attempts.</p>
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The Volunteers went on a 14-3 run to hold a 30-24 lead with under eight minutes remaining, holding Michigan State without a field during the run.</p>
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The Spartans ended the field goal drought with an Austin Thornton jumper, their first basket in nearly five minutes.</p>
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Despite a slam-tastic alley-oop rim shaker from J.P. Prince, the Volunteers held just a 41-39 advantage at halftime.</p>
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"Michigan State got 11 second-chance points in the first half," said Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl. "We looked good offensively, and there was some real flow. But our defense allowed Michigan to make some shots we just didn’t contest."</p>
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Tennessee’s first three baskets of the second half were a Brian Williams dunk and two more slams from Prince. The Vols led 47-42 until a Summers 3-pointer cut the lead to two. Summers had a game-high 21 points.</p>
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A Chism trey at the other end was the first non-dunk bucket of the half for the Vols, but Michigan State quickly responded with a Chris Allen trey. Michigan State took back the lead on a Summers three-point play.</p>
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As good as Tennessee shot in the first half, the Vols were just 1 of 7 from behind the arc in the second half. Chism led four players in double figures with 13 points. Prince had 12, Williams scored 11 and Hopson finished with 10 points.</p>
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Allen and Summers sparked a 14-1 run that helped Michigan State take its largest lead of the game at 59-51.</p>
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"We just couldn’t make shots," Chism said. "Sometimes that happens."</p>
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Tennessee went more than eight minutes without a field goal, a drought that ended on a Maze jumper to bring the Vols within 59-57. A Williams hook shot gave the lead back to Tennessee at 62-61 with 6:03 on the clock.</p>
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The teams went back and forth, and it remained a one-possession game until the final buzzer. The teams had an equal amount of total rebounds (27) and the same number of field goals (24).</p>
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Michigan State had one more turnover (11) than Tennessee with two more free throws (16) with the same number of attempts (21). The Vols finished with seven 3-pointers to Michigan State’s six.</p>
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"I thought a couple of times, ‘God, this is a helluva game,’" Izzo said. "Then I realized I was giving (Tennessee) credit, and I didn’t want to do that. Throughout the game, it was like two points one way and two points the other way. It had to be a pretty good game to watch."</p>
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Many of the 25,242 fans were clad in orange, something the Volunteers appreciated.</p>
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"I’m proud when you looked into the stands and saw all that orange up there," Pearl said. "This isn’t close to home either. These people got in the car, and they got here. They’re proud of this team, and they stayed with us all season long through a lot of adversity."</p>
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Pearl was also impressed with Izzo’s ability to get to the Final Four so often.</p>
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"It’s incredible, the consistency and obviously the expectation," Pearl said of Izzo’s program. "That accomplishment certainly speaks for itself, and to do it with a number of different teams.</p>
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"Tom Izzo is probably as accomplished and outstanding a coach as there is in our profession."</p>
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But for Izzo, the season isn’t yet over.</p>
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"There is nothing greater than going to a Final Four, except winning it," Izzo said. "Now we get a chance to do that."</p>

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