The Big Ten has been one of the premier basketball conferences in the country year in and year out for the last two decades, but no Big Ten team has reached the summit of March Madness since Michigan State’s triumph in 2000.
Tom Izzo and the Spartans remain the last Big Ten team to win a men’s basketball national championship after Purdue fell to Connecticut in Monday’s national championship game, with the Boilermakers coming up one game short of the ultimate redemption season.
Purdue was the latest Big Ten team to reach the championship and ultimately fail, extending the conference’s drought for at least another season. Seven Big Ten teams, including MSU, have reached the national championship game since 2000, but all have fallen short of taking home the trophy.
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After MSU’s title, Indiana was the first Big Ten team to make the final in 2002, but fell to Maryland, then in the ACC, in the championship. Illinois made it three years later in 2005, but ran into a buzzsaw North Carolina team to come up one game short. Ohio State made it in 2007 with Greg Oden and Mike Conley but dropped to the last team to win consecutive titles before UConn, Florida. MSU made it to the 2009 national championship in Detroit, but another North Carolina superteam stood in the way. Outside of MSU, Michigan is the only other school to appear in two title games in the 2000s, but dropped to Louisville in 2013 and Villanova in 2018. Wisconsin was the other school to make it in 2015 but lost to a Duke team that also beat the Spartans.
As the years pass, Michigan State’s 2000 team remains a part of the conversation each basketball season in the Midwest as a reference point and marker in the history books. There have been a lot of great teams in the conference since then, but no one has been quite able to replicate MSU’s magic – including Izzo himself, though he may never stop trying.
With the 1999-00 Spartans still very much part of the college sports vortex, here is a quick look back at the MSU team we just can’t stop talking about, including a similarity to this year’s UConn team.
How MSU became the last Big Ten team to win college basketball national title
Michigan State already introduced themselves to the greater college basketball world with a Final Four run in 1999, the first in Izzo’s tenure. The core of the squad remained unchanged, outside of the addition of high-flying freshman Jason Richardson and the loss of senior forward Antonio Smith, and followed up the 33-5 season in 1999 with a 32-7 finish in 2000.
The Spartans split the Big Ten regular season title with Ohio State and staked an individual claim as the best team in the conference by winning the conference tournament with wins over Purdue, Wisconsin and Illinois to cut down the first set of nets of the postseason.
Michigan State earned the No. 1 seed in the Midwest region after the stellar season. In the first round in Cleveland, Michigan State blew out 16-seed Valparaiso 65-38, led by 15 points and eight assists from Mateen Cleaves and a defensive effort that held Valpo to 15 points in the first half.
MSU played 8-seed Utah in the second round and had a scare in the first half before ultimately pulling away for a 73-61 win. Utah led for most of the first half and by three at halftime, but MSU outscored the Utes 41-26 in the second half, including a 27-7 run, to pull away. Again, Cleaves was the story for MSU, finishing with 21 points and five assists, including 13 points in the second half.
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MSU returned to Michigan for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight at the Palace of Auburn Hills. MSU faced 4-seed Syracuse in the Sweet 16, and had another tense game until a late rally in the final moments. MSU trailed by 10 points at halftime and the deficit was as big as 14 points, but outscored Syracuse 51-24 in the second half to advance with a 75-58 victory. MSU battled back and tied the game at 56 and eventually closed on a 17-0 run in the final six minutes after it was tied at 58 — a run so good a Syracuse player called MSU one of the best teams in a long time after losing.
MSU had two days after the thrilling win to prepare for another hard-fought battle with 2-seed Iowa State with a trip to the Final Four on the line. MSU put together the third straight late-game run, this time a 23-5 run in the final 5:49 of the game, to take down Iowa State 75-64. MSU held a three-point lead at halftime before falling behind by seven points with six minutes left to set up the late rally, punctuated by a Cleaves-to-Morris Peterson alley-oop to put MSU up by three late. Peterson and A.J. Granger led MSU with 18 points and Andre Hutson had a 17-point and 11-rebound double-double to secure the second straight Final Four trip.
MSU faced another Big Ten team, 8-seed Wisconsin, in the Final Four in Indianapolis. The Spartans secured the fourth win of the season over the Badgers in a 53-41 win that encapsulated the tough-nosed battles between the two schools in the early 2000s. MSU led just 19-17 at halftime, but used a 13-2 run to open the second half to build enough distance in the low-scoring affair for the school’s first national championship appearance since 1979. Peterson was MSU’s leading scorer with 20 points.
The win set up a date with 5-seed Florida in the national championship after the Gators beat North Carolina in the other semifinal game. MSU jumped out to an 11-point lead at halftime and kept Florida’s comeback at bay in the second half to win 89-76 to secure the school’s second, and most recent, national championship.
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Cleaves played through a sprained ankle in the second half to lead MSU down the stretch and finished with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Peterson finished with a team-high 21 points and Granger chipped in 19 points and nine rebounds. Cleaves finished as the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player and memorably broke into joyous tears during the celebration after finishing his final game at MSU atop the college basketball mountain.
Michigan State’s 2000 run was one of the most dominant in the history of the sport, similar to UConn’s title runs the last two seasons. MSU is one of seven teams since the NCAA tournament expanded in 1985 to win all six tournament games by double digits, along with 2023 and 2024 UConn, 2018 Villanova, 2009 and 2016 North Carolina and 2001 Duke.
That’s the blueprint of the most recent Big Ten national championship. It will remain the most recent example until another team from the conference, potentially MSU, can navigate the trials of March again.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: With Purdue loss, MSU basketball still last Big Ten national champion
