Green Dream Soothes Ailing City, State

DETROIT -- On command, when a local kid named Durrell Summers lifted off and nearly decapitated Stanley Robinson with a vicious dunk, a moving wave of green-swept humanity rose and rocked. Yes, your honor, this was a ridiculous homecourt advantage, a home-FIELD advantage of about 45,000 local crazies in a 72,500-seat football stadium, an advantage in ways freakishly unprecedented in the fiercely neutral extravaganza known as the Final Four.

Ford Field is guilty as charged.

And not a soul with a conscience should complain about it.

---

---

A dying city and troubled state have been pumped with life, joy and fun by a college basketball team. That's all anyone should care about today, regardless of whether Michigan State's partisan orgy created an unfair obstacle Saturday evening for favored Connecticut. The auto plants are crippled and begging for bailouts. The unemployment rate in Michigan is 12 percent, highest in the land. People are being tossed out of their homes. The former mayor was jailed in a text-message/affair scandal. Crime is a perpetual plague. On the desperate downtown streets, you'll see a homeless person begging on every block. The American economy is diseased, and Detroit is the poster child.

So when Tom Izzo and the Spartans provide a local stimulus plan, if only for a weekend, why should we do anything but stand, applaud and marvel? A good team has transformed into an inspirational, blue-collar team, with Izzo's old-school formula of defense, rebounding, selflessness and physicality fueling an 82-73 victory and a berth against powerful North Carolina in Monday night's national championship game. College programs normally aren't rallying forces in a recession, but in Michigan, the two major state universities always have been vibrant sources of sporting pride. And with North Carolina perceived nationally as a blueblood program that has been to 18 Final Fours, well, let's just say America has an easy decision regarding a rooting interest.

"It was hard to explain the emotion of the day. I told my team that I'm not gonna try," said Izzo, who has been masterful in maximizing his team's talent and rallying the MSU cause around a state's woes. "I felt (the spirit) the day we came here. I felt it at the hotel. I felt it driving to practices. I felt it at practice. We had a pep rally, and I felt it with all the people there. But my favorite time today was driving to the game. You go by some tough homes, tough places. I did make that, you know, the important part of this game. I've always said, as a player, you've got a chance to be a difference-maker, a role model, a chance to do things to make other people smile and other people feel good about you.

"We are the blue-collar team. This is the blue-collar city. It was just amazing to walk out of that tunnel for the people in Detroit. That was an incredible setting. Yes, there were a lot of Michigan State fans. I am appreciative for that. I hope we were a ray of sunshine, a distraction for them, a diversion, anything else we can be. And we're not done yet, so hopefully we can continue to make them feel a little better and us feel a lot better."

His players are embracing the emotion, too. Star guard Kalin Lucas, a native of suburban Sterling Heights, Mich., listed his hometown as Detroit for the first time during pregame introductions. "Yeah, it was my decision. My grandma, she stays two minutes away from here," he said. "I have lived with my granny before and I've lived with my parents also. So today, I just wanted to represent the hometown of Detroit. I do know people who have had hard times, who have been laid off of they jobs or whatever. It is hard times in Detroit. So we just came out and played hard, played aggressive for the whole 40 minutes for the crowd. We just ran 'em."

"I think everybody is having hard times. Rich people losing their money -- you know, poor people ain't getting no money," guard Travis Walton said. "When you're in this type of atmosphere, you want to play for yourself and your team, but you also want to play for Detroit and your state."

How tough was Sparty amid such a heavy backdrop? We almost saw the first brawl in Final Four memory late in the first half. There was Walton, knocked to the floor under the basket by UConn forward Jeff Adrien, bouncing up with an in-your-face challenge. That led UConn's 7-foot-3 Hasheem Thabeet to push Marquise Gray, and suddenly, the refs had to work feverishly to calm players from both teams. Jim Calhoun, the UConn coach, rushed onto the court to make peace. It isn't often when a Big East brute is overpowered by a team from the Big Ten, generally known for its softness and irrelevance. Such is the heart and fire of Michigan State, which becomes a story for the ages with one more victory.


"The toughest players win," Izzo said. "Everybody has all their great players, and somebody is going to make a few more shots than somebody else. It really comes down to who is going to cut out on the free-throw line, who is going to get the loose ball."

Lest anyone think Connecticut is brooding about the crowd disadvantage, think again. "The 72,000 people quite frankly could have been 7,000 people as far as I'm concerned," Calhoun said. "It didn't affect us. I think it affected them. When they made very good plays out there, they obviously had incredible reinforcement. That probably, for them, made a difference. Didn't make a difference for us."

"When you're on the court, you're not paying attention to the crowd," said UConn guard A.J. Price, whose college career ended with a disappointing 5-of-20 thud. "You pay attention to the game, try to play as hard as you can. It really didn't make a difference."

Like Louisville last weekend, UConn has more talent than Michigan State. This could be a program-changing loss, then, if Calhoun, who is battling health issues and a brewing recruiting scandal, chooses to retire. I'd suggest that it's time to go, not wanting his mounting issues to take years off his life. Have you heard him ramble lately at press conferences? Does he make any sense? Every day, it seems, Calhoun is in another fix -- the latest involving his claim Friday that the NCAA imposed a gag order on him regarding the recruiting mess. "I said a gag order. I was reprimanded about that," he told the media. "Would you please not take everything I say literally, please? I'm trying to do the best I can. I know I'm not very accessible to you. But would you not do that, please? Would you please not do that? I had to say that because, you know, I was asked not to say it. And they're right. I've just been asked not to speak to the facts of the case."

So why come back? Late in the night, he sounded like a man who might not return. "Some of the things, some of the disappointments I've had, particularly over the past couple weeks, some people that I really care about who -- benefit of the doubt is usually what I try to give to most people," said Calhoun, addressing one media member in particular, apparently a Hartford writer. "I think you and I go back a long way, we probably had a couple of spats, and I always try to give you the benefit of the doubt after we have our spats. I don't think with a lot of people who I care about, like, respect, I don't think they've ever given me the benefit of the doubt. For that, it's a personal thing."

Next came a shot at two other writers -- possibly the Yahoo! Sports team that broke the stories about alleged recruiting improprieties. "I probably shouldn't be expressing it, but that's just who I am. I couldn't be more disappointed in two people who just jump in and all of a sudden become the expert on who Jim Calhoun is," he said. "That's incredibly disappointing to me. And it would be to you, too, by the way. It would be to you because you have respect for them. Then you see the fact that they, in turn, say things without any factual basis whatsoever and just jump along.

"So those kind of things -- that's why (former North Carolina coach) Dean Smith told me at 67, he got out. It wasn't basketball. It was the other things. He wasn't winning enough championships. He was getting too old. I do love the kids, love the game. I don't plan to go anyplace. But I'm going to give it a lot of reflection, maybe more reflection than normal, because of that."

The dark clouds over Connecticut, where Calhoun blundered last month by fumbling a question about his $1.6-million pay in the current economy, are in stark contrast to the sunshine in The Izzone. If Detroit has quivered for days, might the city explode in glee Monday night? "I think that Tommy has done a masterful job of putting the woes of the auto industry and Detroit and Michigan on his back," Calhoun said. "I never thought they could do what they did to Louisville. I honestly mean that."

And what will it be like for Izzo to wake up Monday morning and play for a national championship 90 miles from campus? "I'm not sure that's registered yet," he said. "I'm trying to make sure my team realizes that the goal of great programs is to win the weekend, not win the game. We've got another game to play. I was on the CBS show after the game, and they were waiting and waiting. I think (broadcaster) Jim Nantz felt like, 'I'm keeping this guy forever.' I said, 'Jim, chill out. I can stand here for another day. If we can prolong our game and play it later, I don't mind standing here at all.'

"The day was surreal. And now it all turns to scouting and seeing if we can make the dream, the miracle, everything come true one final time."

If they do, it will be a vintage example of sports and young people healing human pain. Astonishingly, Detroit feels like paradise right now.