Playing with emotion

According to players and fellow coaches, Durrell Summers is a quite kid who tends to take his laid back demeanor many times to the court, which can frustrate his teammates and coaches. That changed Sunday according to the Detroit Free Press:


Durrell Summers was the X-factor Sunday that powered Michigan State to its fifth Final Four in the past 11 seasons.

Summers scored 10 of his 12 points in the second half, including a run of seven consecutive points that enabled the Spartans to race to a nine-point lead at 46-37 with just under 11 minutes to play.

But senior guard Travis Walton said Summers' contributions were bigger than just the points he scored. He said the sophomore grew up under the bright lights at Lucas Oil Stadium and the Midwest Regional championship game.

"He did something in our huddle that was bigger than the shots he hit, bigger than the defense he played,'' Walton said. "He showed some emotion. He showed some fire. He grew up (Sunday) to be a great player no matter how he plays in the Final Four.

"He grew up to be a man.''

Focus, work ethic sends Michigan State to Final Four

Big time performance from Tom Izzo's Michigan State Spartans yesterday in their 64-52 win over top seeded Louisville. I posted last week about how Coach Izzo stated that he thought his team was starting to 'get it' in terms of how to be winners. A couple of articles from espn.com and the Detroit Free Press show the mental preparation that the Spartans took into Sunday. According to the coach and players the victory started at their shootaround yesterday morning:

At 10 Sunday morning, the Michigan State basketball team reported for its walkthrough in a basement ballroom of the downtown Hilton.

What the Spartans showed their coach in that room was a monumental focus on the mission to reach the Final Four in their home state.

"They were locked in like they were in the army," Tom Izzo marveled. "I felt like saluting them.
"I went from worrying about things to leaving there saying, 'We're going to win the game.'"

Said freshman Draymond Green:

“We had a walk-through this morning,” freshman Draymond Green said. “Coach told us, ‘I can see it in somebody’s eyes when they’re ready, and I think they’re ready to play.’ And he could see it when we walked through the door before the walk-through, that we were gonna win this game.”

Senior captain Travis Walton was instrumental in helping his team gain the right mindset going into the game. His leadership has been noted in this blog before and continues to impress me everytime I read something on him:

Credit for taking Louisville forward Terrance Williams out of the game goes largely to Walton, the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. Despite giving away 6 inches, the rugged senior guard declared to his coaches Friday night, "I got Williams."

"The job he did on Williams was incredible," Izzo said.

If the Spartans had lost, he would have become the only four-year player in the Izzo Era not to have reached a Final Four -- a streak he did not want to see end on his watch. Michigan State staffers said Walton single-handedly demanded that his teammates approach this game with total focus.

"I had pressure," Walton said. "Seniors had pressure. Our underclassmen had pressure to deliver this last class and get them to the Final Four so Coach can go on the road, anywhere he goes, and say ... 'You know what, I know you watched the Final Four on TV, I know you dream about going there. If you come to Michigan State University ... we're going to get you to a Final Four.'

"And now he can say that to every person, look them in the eyes and not have to say, 'There was one player I did not get [to the Final Four].' ... Thank you, Coach, and our coaching staff."

Glue Guy- Travis Walton

This guy is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I posted an article a week ago on Michigan State guard Travis Walton. Walton is an all-glue guy member and is what every coach dreams of out of a player. I found this article from the Grand Rapids Press after Michigan State defeated Purdue on Sunday:

EAST LANSING -- With its first Big Ten championship since 2001 already secured, a true sense of urgency wasn't necessary Sunday by Michigan State in its regular-season finale against Purdue:

The Spartans were the top seed in this week's Big Ten tournament even before beating the cold-shooting Boilermakers, 62-51.

Unless they do a complete flop in Indianapolis, they will be no worse than a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament.

But simply going through the motions Sunday wasn't captain Travis Walton's style. Never has been. No matter the circumstances, which is why Walton offered some terse, fire-up-the-troops comments at halftime.

"Trav brought it all (today), and it was the players' commitment at halftime that was bigger than any speech I gave," MSU coach Tom Izzo said. "That was all because of Trav and his speech.

"I always say a player-coach team is a lot better than a coach-coach team. Walton is the only guy I know who cannot score a lot of points and be a difference maker in a game. He was a difference maker in our locker room this time."

For lack of a better description, Walton has become Tom Izzo Jr. during his four years in East Lansing. When he speaks, which is rare in public, he commands complete attention from his teammates. When he plays his patented lockdown defense, the other Spartans pick up their defense.

Walton helped MSU force the Boilermakers into 6-for-32 field-goal shooting in the final 20 minutes for a miserable 18.8-percentage.

"Sometimes, when the coaches are getting on everybody, Trav will say the same thing to us. But it's how he relays it," sophomore guard Durrell Summers said. "That's the sign of a true, legitimate team leader.

"We were sluggish in the first half. That's when Travis said 'enough was enough' at halftime. That's when he reminded us that we're all hungry for more. That we have bigger goals ahead of us."

Walton scored just two points against Purdue. But it's all the little things he did -- three steals, three rebounds and two assists -- that to add to his leadership qualities and defensive skills, that make him a complete package.

It is his dedication to winning, which is a similar trait that made Mateen Cleaves special as a Spartan.

"You need somebody that puts winning above everything, and is tough enough to deal with it," Izzo said. "And you need a coach on the floor. That's all Trav."

At halftime, Walton told his teammates their first-half play was unacceptable.

"I just talked about how they were outscrapping us a little bit," Walton said. "It looked like the same thing down there I wasn't going to have that happen at home, and especially on our senior day," Walton said of MSU's 72-54 loss at Purdue on Feb. 17.

"Nobody wanted this final regular-season win as badly as me. Not even our other three seniors. For us to win the championship by four games was even bigger than three games. To tie the school record for most Big Ten wins (15) was too important to me. But we have more to get done."

Travis Walton's defense makes difference in Spartans' success

Examining Travis Walton's game-by-game statistics is not the best way to measure his contribution this season. A better way would be to look at the stats of those players the Michigan State senior guard has been assigned to defend.

"We've put him on a variety of different guys from 6 feet to 6-7," coach Tom Izzo said. "But he's got that one intangible that not many people have anymore. He's just got toughness, and that's why we recruited him. We thought there was something missing in our program and we needed a bulldog -- another (Mateen) Cleaves-type guy who would get after it."

"You'll always have your star players, but you also have to have that guy that's gonna play defense, that's going to do all the little dirty things that your star player's not supposed to be doing," Walton said.

Izzo said MSU was lacking the "blue-collar guy" that he liked during the early 2000s, and Walton appeared to be the type to fill that role.

Since Walton's arrival, Izzo has been so impressed by his leadership on and off the court that he made Walton a co-captain as a sophomore. Walton is the third three-year captain in Izzo's tenure.

From the start of his senior season, Walton has been forthcoming about his goals. He frequently has mentioned how much he wants to win the Big Ten's Defensive Player of the Year Award, but is aware that anyone's chances to win individual honors correlates heavily with team success.

Illinois coach Bruce Weber spoke highly of his player, Chester Frazier, as well as Walton during Monday's Big Ten teleconference.

"They're both guys that have accepted their roles," Weber said. "It's not easy in this day and age to say, 'Hey, I'm a defensive stopper.' It's not cool to be a defensive stopper. You want to be a go-to guy, a three-point shooter, a dunker or something like that."

Reigning defensive player of the year, Purdue's Chris Kramer, is in the same mold. Purdue also is 1 1/2 games behind first-place MSU.

"Those three guys -- it's kind of funny that the three leading teams in the league all have one of those kind of guys," Izzo said. "Maybe that's why we're all in the same boat."