On the first day of March, Michigan State played host to the underwhelming Illini of Illinois. The game was rough, sloppy and full of errant shots from both sides.  

If that 40 minutes of rock-throwing were ever converted into a song, it would need to be played on a heavily scratched record to get the full effect; lots of false starts, halted movements, and eventually, frustration at the whole woebegone experience.

The Spartans lost the game, failing to reach 50 points for the first (and only) time this year. 

Adreian Payne was invisible throughout.  

Keith Appling refused to toss the ball in the direction of the basket unless he was forced to via the free throw (and those didn’t turn out well, either).  

Gary Harris played fairly well, but could not shoulder the load by himself.  

Branden Dawson returned from injury and looked remarkably spry, but even his bouncy presence was not enough to keep Tom Izzo’s squad from falling short in a rather embarrassing home defeat.

The post game commentary was painfully familiar in describing this year’s Spartans.

They have immense talent, but cannot seem to put all the pieces together. 

They are good enough to beat the best.  And inconsistent enough to lose to the worst.

There was criticism, there was frustration, there was unhappiness.  It was the Spartans‘ sixth loss in ten games.  The NCAA Tournament was just around the corner and panic was the overriding sentiment in East Lansing.

It’s been less than three weeks since that Breslin meltdown -- 18 days, to be exact.  

And somehow, someway, when the 64-team dance commences on Thursday afternoon, this same underachieving band of Spartans will represent the odds-on favorite to the win the whole darned thing.  

A Rare Harmony

The talking heads on ESPN generally have just one thing in common; their shared desire to be the one speaking next.  One shouts loud, the other shouts louder, the third screams over the both of them.  Opinions fly, stances are taken, and in the end, the only person smiling is the lucky soul fortunate to have flipped the station ten minutes prior.  

But a strange phenomenon began taking hold when the brackets were released on Sunday night.  Every single one of the “experts” was saying the exact same thing.

“The Michigan State Spartans are going all the way.”

Uniformity in their selections has been unlike anything I can remember.  

There have been undefeated teams; rosters loaded with a slew of NBA-ready talent; defending champs bringing back the same starting five.  And none have elicited the collective praise and confidence of the college hoops world like we are seeing with these Spartans.  

Let’s remember, also, that Izzo’s crew is a mere four-seed in this dance.  There were at least a dozen teams deemed worthy of a better pre-tournament ranking.  So how did this once-tumbling team become a national sensation seemingly overnight?

Their sudden rise to the peak of the prognostication pyramid essentially boils down to a pair of quality wins on a neutral floor to close out the Big Ten Tournament (the win over Northwestern need not be factored in).  They handled Wisconsin with ease in the semis and did the same with Michigan in the final.  

The victories were undeniably impressive, coming against two of the more disciplined teams in the country.  Dawson was all over the court, Payne racked up points, and Appling even displayed a hint of an offensive pulse. 

But having said all that, hasn’t America gotten a bit ahead of itself here?  

From January 21st through the end of the regular season on March 9th, the Spartans played 13 basketball games.  Not once during that stretch did they post consecutive wins.  Yet every hoop-head with a hot microphone and silk tie is now predicting six straight green-and-white triumphs to close out the year.

Three Weeks Of Basketball Joy

It’s what makes March Madness the single best sporting event of the year.

A bracket is spit out Sunday night and the next 72 hours are spent breaking it all down.  We research the various conferences, figure out upset specials and scour the Internet to determine whether that one school is pronounced “Woof-ord” or “Waw-ford.” 

This year, the work has been done for us. There are no dissenting viewpoints and nary an argument about how it will all turn out.    

Michigan State will be the 2014 NCAA basketball champions.

That’s what they tell us, at least.