Previewing Michigan State-UConn in the Armed Forces Classic
Posted by jnowak on November 9th, 2012What a way to kick off the college basketball season. For the second year in a row, Michigan State will represent the Big Ten on a national stage to open the season while also paying tribute to our country’s armed forces. After playing in front of a national television audience (that included President Barack Obama onsite in attendance) against North Carolina on the U.S.S. Carl Vinson last year, the Spartans open the 2012-13 on Friday against Connecticut at Ramstein Air Base in southwest Germany (5:30 PM ET, ESPN).
Michigan State will wear these uniforms Friday night as they honor the U.S. troops for the second consecutive year in the Spartans’ season opener against UConn. (Photo courtesy @MSU_Basketball)
The No. 6 Spartans are coming off a season in which they overachieved by most standards, winning a share of the Big Ten regular season title, the Big Ten Tournament, and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen as one of the NCAA Tournament’s four No. 1 seeds. UConn’s 2011-12 season took a step in the opposite direction. While the Spartans weren’t figured by many to contend on a national scale, the Huskies were. And they disappointed in a huge way, sputtering to a 20-14 record and a first-round exit at the hands of Iowa State in the NCAA Tournament the year after they won it all. “We’re playing a team that’s not ranked but you’re going to see is awfully good,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said, according to MLive.com. “This team will compete in that league (the Big East), no problem. Don’t look for there to be great falloff here.”
The Huskies lost five players — including Andre Drummond, Alex Oriakhi and Jeremy Lamb — from a team that Izzo has compared to his 2010-11 group, which had plenty of talent but could never put the pieces together. An even more intriguing storyline will be another noticeable absence on the bench, in Jim Calhoun himself. After Calhoun’s retirement this offseason, it’ll be former assistant Kevin Ollie manning the sidelines, making his head coaching debut on Friday.
Other key newcomers on display Friday will include freshmen guards Gary Harris (Michigan State) and Omar Calhoun (Connecticut), who were both ranked among Rivals.com‘s top 40 among this year’s recruiting class. Calhoun led the Huskies in scoring after two exhibition games. “Nobody thinks we’re good enough,” UConn sophomore guard Ryan Boatright said, according to the Associated Press. “But we feel like we’ve got enough here to have a successful season and to open a lot of people’s eyes this year, and to prove everybody wrong. I feel that’s the chip we’ve got on our shoulders, to prove the world wrong.”
Of course, the players won’t be the only group on display Friday. It’ll be a tremendous sight to see the basketball court erected in a hangar of the base that usually houses fighter jets, with seats constructed around the floor. It’s a fantastic tribute to our nation’s troops, and after the teams arrived this week in Germany, they’ve spent time touring the area, meeting with people stationed there and visiting a military medical facility that treats servicemen and servicewomen wounded overseas. The teams also put on a basketball clinic together Thursday for children living on the base. “I think it will give (our players) a different perspective on how attention to details is important to them,” Izzo told the AP in Ramstein. “It’s a way of life. They (soldiers) have to be that way. It’s not an option. I think those kinds of things will help and team time is important too.”
