Tom Izzo warned his players: Don’t take the bait.
After Michigan State flattened Wisconsin 67-55 to earn the first spot in Sunday’s Big Ten Tournament championship game, the coach prepared his Spartans for the “poison pens” who would be asking if they’d rather face Michigan or Minnesota.
Stick to the script, he told them. And they did.
“You know what?” Nick Ward said. “I just want to win a championship.”
When reporters told Izzo how his troops had complied, the coach shot back: “First time in a month they listened to me!”
The only guy who couldn’t mask his true feelings was … well, Izzo.
“Championships kind of supersede rivalries,” he said.
But then he added: “Would it be sweeter? Maybe.”
Nope, definitely. And for both sides.
“It’s the perfect scenario,” said Isaiah Livers, whose 21 points Saturday keyed Michigan’s 76-49 demolition of Minnesota. “God has given us a gift.”
We’re all fortunate to get this Ali-Tyson matchup in their primes.
Michigan State is the king of Big Ten basketball. Izzo’s crew has reached seven Final Fours since 1999, and the Spartans are the league’s only NCAA Tournament champion over the last 25 years. Sad but true.
Michigan has won 10 straight Big Ten Tournament games, a league record, after romping in Washington two years ago and Madison Square Garden last season.
On top of that, Michigan players are in danger of serious mockery given that Michigan State beat them twice this season — 77-70 in Ann Arbor and 75-63 in East Lansing.
“This is how I had it perfectly planned coming into this tournament,” said Livers, who shot 8-for-10 on Saturday. “I wanted another chance to play them before the season is over. I don’t want them to be able to say: We’re 3-0 against Michigan.”
Livers spoke at the United Center just minutes after the Michigan Daily tweeted that its reporters “have heard there are multiple people wounded” as result of an on-campus shooter.
“I’m thinking about my friends, my girlfriend, everybody who is there now,” Livers said.
Thankfully, mercifully, those reports turned out to be false.
Which means we can get back to wondering which spectacular point guard, Michigan’s Zavier Simpson or Michigan State’s Cassius Winston, will romp on Michael Jordan’s home court.
Simpson played another near-perfect game. He finally did miss a shot — what a scrub — after going 4-for-4 in Michigan’s drubbing of Iowa on Friday. Simpson made 6 of 8 on Saturday for 15 points while dishing out nine assists without a turnover.
Winston, after totaling 21 points and six assists against Wisconsin, called the ride into Sunday “amazing. It’s what we do here. We play for championships.”
Michigan State scored the game’s first eight points against Wisconsin and hung on, denying easy looks from the 3-point line. Izzo called his team’s performance “gritty.”
It was elegant for a few minutes as the Spartans swished 3 after 3. They led 18-4 after Kenny Goins knocked one down.
The rest of the game was mainly about making Ethan Happ work for all of his 20 points. (He needed 20 field-goal tries to get there.)
Also on the check list: Integrating Ward back into the lineup after he missed a month with a broken left hand. Having Winston avoid more ankle and toe injuries. And helping Xavier Tillman with a case of acrophobia.
Wait, what?
Tillman, you see, blew a dunk right before halftime.
“It’s like his fourth time,” Winston said. “One time a guy (on defense) just stopped and tried to let him dunk on him and he still missed.”
Izzo has diagnosed the problem, calling it “a fear of heights.”
Ouch.
The 6-foot-8 Tillman took serious grief from Izzo and teammates for the missed dunk.
“I guess he doesn’t like my assists,” guard Matt McQuaid said.
The gregarious Tillman attributed his misses to going for a high degree of difficulty: “My mindset is to dunk it hard. I want to make my force known. That’s kind of my thing. As I’m seeing now, I might have to do a lot more soft dunks just to get the two points.”
Soft? In a Michigan-Michigan State tussle for the title?
Don’t take the bait.
tgreenstein@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @TeddyGreenstein
