NEW YORK – Michigan State guard Keith Appling drove the lane one day in practice and flipped a lob to Branden Dawson as he had many times before.
“He didn’t go get it,” Appling recalled Saturday. “It wasn’t that it was a bad pass or bad timing. We weren’t used to doing it. I had been out for so long, and he had been out for so long.”
Appling figured the injury-riddled Spartans would rekindle their chemistry sooner or later. But there isn’t much of a later in the final days of the regular season.
Just in time, Michigan State got its timing back. The Spartans (29-8) are one win away from their seventh Final Four in 16 seasons.
They face UConn (29-8) on Sunday at Madison Square Garden in the East Regional final, a scene hard to envision when Michigan State lost seven of 12 to close the regular season.
Not that the reasons were a mystery. Appling missed three games in February with a sore right wrist. Dawson sat out nine with a broken right hand. Big man Adreian Payne was sidelined for seven with a sprained right foot.
“Once you get everybody back, you kind of expect it to go smoothly like it was before,” guard Gary Harris said.
Instead, the Spartans lost at home to Illinois on March 1 in their first game at full strength.
But they beat Wisconsin and Michigan, two teams that have also reached the regional finals, to win the Big Ten tournament. Suddenly Michigan State was an NCAA tourney favorite despite being seeded fourth.
The Spartans showed why by beating top-seeded Virginia on Friday in the sort of gritty, physical game Michigan State has so often won in March.
Since Izzo took over in 1995, every player he’s recruited who stayed four years has reached a Final Four. If the Spartans lose Sunday, Appling and Payne would be the ones who snapped that streak.
To Izzo, players accept that pressure when they sign with Michigan State.
“I’m hoping for true competitors,” he said. “Fear drives us all.”
The seventh-seeded Huskies’ seniors have played in a Final Four, winning a national title as freshmen. They’ve also experienced missing the NCAA tournament altogether.
UConn was barred from last year’s tourney because of previous low scores on the NCAA’s academic progress measure. Ineligible for any championships, the Huskies opened last season against Michigan State in Germany in coach Kevin Ollie’s first game after Jim Calhoun’s retirement.
UConn upset the 14th-ranked Spartans that day. Izzo could tell “Kevin’s teams are going play hard and will play disciplined.”
All those practices when the Huskies supposedly had nothing to play for are now rewarded by victories in the biggest games.
“That’s what faith is all about,” Ollie said. “When you can’t see it, you still got to believe it.
“We knew we were continuing to plant seeds, and sooner or later it was going to be that right time when we were going to be ready for this moment.”
