UNC basketball outlasts Michigan State in gritty win, earns trip to Sweet 16 in Los Angeles

There is not a sight in college basketball that more connotes the feeling of an NCAA Tournament more than that of Tom Izzo, the Michigan State coach whose team and program have long become an annual staple. He is the last remaining member of a generation of hall of fame coaches who’ve walked away; the last of a kind, in a way.

And so this, on Saturday at the Spectrum Center, felt as much like March, and the tournament, as they can possibly feel like. The second round of the West Region brought a classic and old-school kind of matchup: top-seeded North Carolina vs. No. 9 Michigan State. Hubert Davis, the Tar Heels’ third-year head coach, vs. Izzo, with who knows how many chances left to make a deep run.

He’d spoken warily the day before, on Friday, of playing against an old and distant rival. This was the sixth time UNC and Michigan State had met in the NCAA Tournament. The Tar Heels had won all of them, including the 2009 national championship game, and as much as Izzo looked forward to Saturday night the history “doesn’t feel very good at all” he said with a smile.

This couldn’t have, either. After a sluggish start that belied their season-long goal of making a deep tournament run, UNC awakened from that early malaise during the final 10 minutes of the first half and, buoyed by a partisan crowd and a fighter’s will, persevered for an 85-69 victory.

The Tar Heels are onto Los Angeles, and the West Regional semifinal, and their Four Four aspirations — the dream of cutting down some nets on the final Monday night of the season — are alive and well. They kept them that way with a performance here on Saturday characterized by resilience and toughness, and those little things that often fall through the cracks of a box score.

Not that that didn’t tell its own story: Armando Bacot’s 18 points and seven rebounds; Harrison Ingram’s 17 points; RJ Davis’ 20. And the UNC defense, which hounded the Spartans for most of an exhausting 40 minutes, and held them 42.6% shooting — 38% percent in the second half, when Michigan State threatened, several times, but never regained a lead that was once in double figures.

It took the kind of effort that has long been the standard against Izzo and his teams. It took all those sporting cliches that are cliches for good reason: toughness and grit and fight. It took some guts. The Spartans came out here during the first 10 minutes and punched UNC. And for a while the Tar Heels, who trailed by 12 midway through the first half, appeared stunned and dazed.

But this is March, and the time of ultimate proving. And during a torrid finish to the first half, when the Tar Heels outscored Michigan State 26-5 over the final nine and a half minutes before halftime, they proved they had too much skill for the Spartans. And then, during a second half of hanging-on — of Davis stomping and clapping and yelling, in peak “Live Action” Hubert form — UNC proved it had too much fight.

The Spartans, who trailed by nine at halftime, kept trying to come back during the second half. And UNC kept responding. Michigan State cut the Tar Heels’ lead to two points with about 16 minutes to play, and then to five points and four and five points and four, again — and every time, literally every time, the Tar Heels scored and stretched their margin out every so slightly.

One of those times came when Michigan State cut UNC’s lead to four points with 10 and a half minutes remaining. It was a 57-53 game, and the tension here was thick, the nerves palpable. But soon enough RJ Davis, the UNC senior guard, was dribbling near the top of the key and he saw an opening and released. And ... the shot banked off the backboard and in.

Davis stretched out his arms and looked skyward, as if to offer thanks of a higher power or to take a moment and wonder how he’d made it. But he had, and UNC’s lead was back to seven. And then it was nine, moments later, after Elliot Cadeau’s layup and up to 12 after Harrison Ingram’s 3-pointer rolled around and in with a little more than six minutes remaining.

Timeout, Izzo.

By then the end felt near for Michigan State, if not in terms of time than certainly in game momentum.

At last, the Spartans ran out of comeback attempts. Their shots, which only fell with regularity during that early surge at the start, bounced astray. UNC’s defensive intensity continued and its lead grew to 14 points, its largest, with four minutes remaining.

A full crowd, with no thousands of people in light blue, began to feel it. UNC’s walk-ons entered the game with 45 seconds to play. Soon enough, the Tar Heels’ trip to the Sweet 16 became reality.

For UNC, this was a victory of guts and grit. It was not pretty because it hardly ever is against Izzo in March. His 2022 team pushed Duke, then a top seed, to the brink a little ways down I-85 in Greenville. The Tar Heels won here Saturday with more comfort but it required the same kind of effort. And now they’re onto Los Angeles, and the West Regional semifinal.