In a tournament filled with bracket busters and late game heroics, this year's NCAA tournament has done nothing but make us viewers believe any team could knock anyone else out of March's most cherished basketball event. Take the final four remaining teams in the nation and what do you have. Two number five squads "duking" it out and a one versus a two seed on the other side of the bracket. In the #5 Butler vs. #5 Michigan State game, there are two teams that are very similar in some ways, but equally different in other aspects.
Butler, who is gaining a lot of national attention due to the fact that the final four is in their backyard, is very much like the Michigan State Spartans of last year. Last year the Spartans were the ones with the home court advantage, making it to the Final Four in Detroit. Butler is a team that prides itself in its defense which is what carried the Spartans in last year's tournament run. Led by Travis Walton, the Spartans became known as one of the best defensive and rebounding teams in the Big Ten and country. Butler, like the Spartans of last are relying on this lock down defense to make a run of their own in this year's tourney. Don't get me wrong, this Spartan team can play defense with the best of them, but is unusual to see Butler's name near the top when looking some of the better defensive teams in the country.
On Saturdays game one of the differences will be whether or not hot-shooting Spartan guard Durrell Summers will still be shooting lights out. Summers is scoring over 20 points a game in this years tournament and has shown tremendous confidence. Summers, who has been streaky in the regular season, has shown no lack of confidence so far. He is knocking down the 3-ball with regularity and throwing down some tomahawk dunks as well. If Summers continues to play as he has been, the Spartans will prevail.
Another thing that should not be overlooked is the fact that the Spartans have Tom Izzo as a coach. Izzo, during this year's magical tourney run, is being proclaimed as one of the greatest tournament coaches of all time. Izzo prepares his teams like no other coach does in college basketball. No matter what seed his Spartan teams are, he always makes a run with them. Izzo has been in the Final Four in 6 of the last 12 years. That is absolutely phenomenal for a coach to do. He also has the best tournament record out of any coach since 1999.
Although Butler is playing down the street from their home campus, the Michigan State Spartans will make their presence known in downtown Indy. Izzo is probably the best college basketball tournament coach at this current time and he will have his team ready to knock out the hometown Bulldogs.
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