From an individual standpoint, this season has been an absolute nightmare for Raymar Morgan. The Michigan State junior came into the season with a chance to get into lottery pick position, as long as his game kept progressing. Instead, he regressed.
Every regular statistic across the board is down for Morgan this year. He averaged 14 points a game as a sophomore. Since January 17 this season, he's only gotten 5.5 a night. If you would have told Tom Izzo coming into the season he'd be heading to the Final Four with this low of an offensive output from Morgan, he would have thought you were nuts.
With Morgan's personal hell in full effect, though, the rest of the Spartans have blossomed. Kalin Lucas has made himself into one of college basketball's premier guards. Goran Suton has developed a 3-point shot to complement his post repertoire. A host of others like Durrell Summers, Chris Allen and Travis Walton have improved as well. Freshmen Delvon Roe and Korie Lucious have shown the ability to log meaningful minutes when needed.
But what about Raymar Morgan?
Everything started off just fine. Through the Spartans first 16 games, Morgan was averaging 15.2 points per game. He scored more than 20 in six of those games, and he pulled down at least 10 rebounds five times. At that point in time, he was on the short list for favorites to win the Big Ten Player of the Year. After his abrupt fall off, he didn't even make third team All-Big Ten. If someone merely looks at his game-log for statistical analysis, they could point to the Illinois game (1/17) as the start of something bad with Morgan. What happened to him? Where did his skills go?
What those people would miss is that myriad things out of Morgan's control sprung into action this season. If you want to learn about illnesses, you could simply take a gander at Morgan's medical charts for 2009. He's had the flu, pneumonia, mono, and some upper respiratory issues. That's quite an impressive list to compile over the course of a college career, let alone a few in-season months.
After battling to get himself back into game shape for the balance of the Big Ten slate, Morgan declared himself "back" heading into the NCAA tournament. He put up 16 points and 5 rebounds in the first round against Robert Morris, but has since been relatively ineffective -- his minutes have also been limited, as he only played 10 in the Spartans trouncing of top overall seeded Louisville.
As if he hadn't dealt with enough maladies over the course of this season, Morgan suffered a broken nose at the hands of a teammate in their victory over Kansas.
When the Spartans tip off against Connecticut Saturday evening, Morgan will have had nearly a full week of rest and more than a week off the broken nose incident. It's possible the versatile 6-foot-8 slasher will have gotten used to wearing a protective mask over his nose -- if he even still needs to wear it. It's possible he'll have finally worked up his conditioning to play 30-plus minutes. It's possible he can regain his form as and electric scorer and quick-afoot defender.
The bottom line, if you add the real Raymar Morgan to the rest of the Spartans -- the way they've been playing with this illness-ridden version of Morgan -- you have the recipe for another National Championship banner in East Lansing. It would be like having a star transfer to a school immediately before playing in the Final Four.
Now that, my friends, is what I call an X-Factor.
