A Study in Opposites

Somewhere in Michigan State's middle-class brand of Michigan hope and mixed martial basketball, and North Carolina's mechanized cavalry of an offensive attack, there may be a similarity or two lurking somewhere.

But you've got about as good a chance of finding it as you do spotting an opposing fan in Ford Field's South Pacific of Spartan green.

These two teams couldn't be more different if one of them came out in shoulder pads.

And, with Tom Izzo, who invited Vikings' offensive line coach Pat Morris speak to his team before Saturday night's win, and whose teams always play like it's fourth-and-goal from the one, that could very well be the case.

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It's blue chip versus blue collar, a gold-standard tradition versus cement-tough squad. It's a club that proves anything is possible against another that's proof positive that, even in a depression, the rich always get richer.

It's a team that hopes against a team that expects.

Two teams. One goal. One world of difference.

North Carolina was supposed to be here. The product of top-notch talent and top-shelf tradition, Tar Heel fans likely booked reservations way back when they still had a 401k to cash out to pay for the thing. The Heels were a unanimous preseason No. 1, the first in the history of both the coaches' and the AP poll. They returned the national player of the year, their point guard on ice skates, Ty Lawson, and all-ACC performers Wayne Ellington and Danny Green. They're in the Final Four for an unmatched 18th time after stomping through five teams only loosely called challengers. It was an ending as predictable as the sappiest Disney film.

Michigan State meanwhile, is making its seventh appearance, hardly insignificant but barely in the same area code as the Heels. The Spartans started the year ranked sixth in the nation, but were routed by North Carolina in an embarrassing loss even by the standards of a stadium that hosts the Lions eight times a year. In their last game before the NCAA tournament, the Spartans were unceremoniously dumped by eventual ninth-seed Ohio State.

And while they may both be champions, only one puts the nation in national champs.

North Carolina plucks the best players from any state with a flag, all seemingly born with NBA contracts in their hands and agents doing the delivery. Unless Monday's game gets out of hand, none of the Tar Heels that play will be from the Tar Heel State.

Meanwhile, Michigan State was all but built on a Detroit assembly line. Nine of Izzo's players are from Michigan, and all but Idong Ibok (originally from Nigeria) and Chris Allen (Georgia) are from Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin or Minnesota. Most have some imperfection coming out of college. Some, like Goran Suton, survived a war just to get on the court.

Even the game they play bears little resemblance.


The Spartans rebound like they might go into withdrawal if they go more than three minutes without an offensive board. Michigan State ranks in the top 11 in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage. North Carolina, meanwhile, gave up 22 offensive rebounds to Villanova and finished 102nd in the nation in defensive rebounding percentage.

They play with an attitude around the rim, as though someone insulted their mothers every time a shot goes up. North Carolina, meanwhile, plays with precision, rarely fiery but always intense when it matters.

Both teams like to run, but the transition game is a battle between a factory Ford and race car. One can flirt with speed if needed. The other is built for it. Led by Lawson, who has 28 assists against six turnovers for the NCAA tournament, North Carolina will run you out of the building and leave your tongue hanging out, and that's just in the layup line. The Tar Heels' 75.6 possession per game pace was fifth in the nation and easily the most among NCAA tournament teams.

The Heels are as efficient as they are fast, scoring an average of 123.7 points per 100 possessions.

The Spartans will run -- ask the Huskies when they get their hands off their knees -- but you no more want to get involved in a track meet with a team anchored by Lawson than you want to get involved in a tug of war with a team anchored by a boulder.

Both teams have big men that can score, but only the Spartans can do it inside and out. North Carolina has 28 feet of interior presence that can score around the rim, but Suton can run the offense from the high post. Each of Deon Thompson, Tyler Hansbrough, Ed Davis and Tyler Zeller can convert anything in the paint into points on the scoreboard.

The Tar Heels have a buffet of scorers in their starting five. Their rotation is filled with juniors and seniors and seems as old and familiar as the team's logo. Michigan State, meanwhile, got 33 points off its bench against Connecticut and is just rediscovering Raymar Morgan, the player expected to lead the team at the beginning of the year. Only Morgan and Lucas stand up to the Tar Heels' offense.

On the bench, the Spartans will be led by Izzo, a coach who has only twice failed to live up to his seeding and minor misses in both cases when the Spartans lost in the first round as a six and a seven seed.

On the other side sits Roy Williams, a coach who finally won the big one in 2005, but is, if unfairly, remembered just as much for cleaning his glasses as the Heels fell apart against Kansas last year and all those near-misses in the Final Four.

And so, through five games, it's a team of destiny versus a team of destruction. A team that finds a way to claw to victory versus a team that can't seem to lose.

Michigan State has the crowd and the feel-good story. They're a can-do message in a state whose unemployment figures are starting to look like Lucas' scoring average.

North Carolina may have everything else, including the confidence of that 35-point de-cleating in this very same building.

But if the two teams involved are any key as to how this will play out, that result won't have much to do with the previous game.

Because in this championship game, everything is different.