ATLANTA—Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey and his Big Ten counterpart, Tony Petitti, stood together in a back room of State Farm Arena at halftime of the second game in the NCAA tournament South Region semifinals Friday night. They did not appear to be discussing further plans for worldwide domination. The friendly adversaries had their eyes on a TV screen showing a game from Indianapolis.
To that point, the SEC vs. Big Ten doubleheader was skewing in favor of Petitti. The No. 2 seed Michigan State Spartans had beaten the No. 6 Ole Miss Rebels, and the No. 5 Michigan Wolverines were giving No. 1 Auburn Tigers all they could handle.
In the end, you could call it a draw.
After falling behind by nine points, Auburn came roaring back to take out Michigan, 78–65. The result keeps alive the possibility of an all-SEC Final Four, with No. 1 seed Auburn joined in the Elite Eight by the No. 1 Florida Gators, No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide and No. 2 Tennessee Volunteers. It has been a chalktastic tournament to date, and the league that put a record 14 teams in the Big Dance is holding serve.
As has so often been the case over the last quarter century, Michigan State is now the final remaining team for the Big Ten. Tom Izzo is the last line of defense yet again, with his Spartans playing Bruce Pearl’s Tigers on Sunday afternoon in a game that figures to be a barroom brawl.
Both Auburn and Michigan State are full of seasoned veteran performers, but Friday night they were powered by a vanishing breed in men’s college basketball: star freshmen.
Jase Richardson scored a team-high 20 points for the Spartans, continuing a late-season surge that was interrupted only by a six-point performance against the New Mexico Lobos in the second round of this tourney. “I told [his teammates] after the New Mexico game that I owe them a game because I felt like I wasn’t that good in that game.”
Then Tahaad Pettiford, blessed with an unbreakable self-confidence, dropped 20 points on Michigan—15 of them in the second half. Pettiford was at his best when things looked worse for Auburn, hitting a barrage of big shots after the Wolverines took their nine-point lead with 12:20 to play. He was the fire starter in a Vesuvian, 28–6 eruption that ignited the massive Auburn crowd in the arena.
“There’s not too many freshmen who can take over a game like he can,” said Pettiford’s fifth-year senior teammate, Johni Broome.
Pearl referred to the 6' 1", 175-pound Pettiford as “that little s—” after the game, an apparent term of endearment. Broome called him “a dog.” By any name you want to give him, the guard from Jersey City has now scored 59 points in his first three NCAA tourney games.
In the end, the Tigers had it easier than the Spartans, pulling away earlier. Michigan State had to navigate a nip-and-tuck final five minutes, executing brilliantly to rip the game away from Ole Miss.
In their final nine possessions of the game, the Spartans were 5-for-5 from the field and 6-for-6 from the foul line. The only possession on which they didn’t score was a turnover, after which Izzo ripped assistant Jon Borovich during a timeout huddle.
“He rips all of us,” said associate head coach Doug Wojcik with a laugh.
The other eight endgame possessions were perfection, starting with a spectacular athletic burst. With Ole Miss guard Sean Pedulla starting upcourt with the ball, Jeremy Fears went into free safety mode, leaving his man and coming over to help defend, leaping to swat away a Pedulla pass. The loose ball wound up in the hands of fellow Spartan Coen Carr, who went flying in for a spectacular dunk.
“I feel like no risk, no reward,” Fears said of his freelance play to get in Pedulla’s path. “And in that moment I was going to get that ball regardless. No matter how high he threw it, I was going to jump up and tip the ball, grab the ball in some form, some way. It was just no doubt that I was getting that ball.”
After the Carr dunk, Michigan State scored on a Fears floater in the paint, a Richardson drive, a tough basket by Jaden Akins, a Carson Cooper layup off a deft pick-and-roll play, and six free throws in the final 30 seconds. This was clutch play from the usual deep cast of contributors, living up to the team’s motto throughout the season, “Strength In Numbers.” And it came amid a caldron of pressure against an excellent defense.
“That was the toughest, most physical defensive team that we’ve played in years,” Izzo said of Ole Miss. “It reminded me of the old Gene Keady, Clem Haskins teams when I started in this profession. They did a good job. I didn’t think we did a very good job. We got stymied a lot. I love these guys because they kept grinding. They kept grinding.”
Auburn, too, had to dig in and grind amid an avalanche of turnovers against the Wolverines, who also were quite careless with the ball. The shot that began the turnaround was classic Pettiford, who had to scold Broome into running the right play.
“I messed the play up,” Broome acknowledged. When Pettiford yelled at the team’s star to set a screen, he fired a three over the top of it and the Auburn rally was on.
There was a Denver Jones three. A Broome basket inside. Then a Pettiford fallaway jumper. After two free throws from Chad Baker-Mazara, Jones scored eight straight and then Pettiford took over again. He drove past Michigan 7-footer Vlad Goldin, then delivered the two kill shots—a three at the end of the shot clock, and a fallaway and-one three-point play.
“Some people just got it,” Jones said of Pettiford. “And he’s got it.”
What he and the rest of the Tigers have now is a matchup in a round where Tom Izzo rarely loses. He’s 8–2 in Elite Eight games across 20 years, from 1999 to 2019. That includes a one-point victory over Pearl when he was at Tennessee in ’10.
“It’s hard to believe that in two days we’re playing for the chance to do one of the all-time great things in any basketball player’s life, and that’s play for a Final Four,” Izzo said. “I’m proud and happy for them. They’ve earned it. They deserve it. They did it.”
