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"Little brother" U-M not on MSU's level

Joey Nowak

How would you describe two storied rivals who face off each year with the occasional glimmer of hope in one team’s eyes while the other always manages to come out on top with the bragging rights?

A situation where the underdog can say, “maybe next year” — but that time never seems to come?

It’s like when you’re out in the driveway with an old Spalding ball, trying to back down your older brother and you realize it won’t work.

So you try a fadeaway jump shot, but it gets swatted back in your face. You try going hard to the rim, but to no avail.

As if mixing and matching personnel or defensive sets is going to change the chances of one rival taking down another.

It just doesn’t work, little bro. You’ll never be on my level.

Since the late ’90s, U-M’s basketball program has dwelled in the past.

With the present always bleak and the future barely optimistic, it’s easy to draw on the concrete memories solidified in the record books (that is, until the NCAA nullifies them).

In that time, it watched MSU’s men’s basketball program grow under the tutelage of head coach Tom Izzo.

Four Big Ten regular season titles.

Two Big Ten Tournament titles.

Four Final Fours and a national championship. Green glory.

For those years, the Maize and Blue has done its best to turn a collective blind eye to East Lansing’s success and shrug it off with a “wait ‘til September.” Well, if you can wait ‘til September, we can wait ‘til November — and March.

While MSU makes a living in the NCAA Tournament, the Wolverines fight for their NIT lives.

Mike Hart said it first. After the Wolverines stunned the Spartans this fall in Spartan Stadium, robbing the Green and White of their first victory against U-M in six years and a little bit of dignity, he dubbed MSU the “little brother” of the rivalry, saying, “Sometimes, you get your little brother excited when you’re playing basketball – let them get the lead. And then you come back.”

Easy, buddy.

How about the little brother that never comes close to competing in the same class? I’m not sure what’s worse — playing tight games through overtime and fourth-quarter comebacks at home and on the road (like MSU football) — or getting beat 14 of the last 17 meetings (as U-M basketball has).

Avoid straying into the realm of personal digs — how Brent Petway hired a tutor to shave a block ‘M’ into his buzz cut last year, how the plastic surgeon under scrutiny for the death of Kanye West’s mother did his studying at U-M or how the Maize Rage (or more suitable for Ann Arbor’s image, the “Maize Haze”) doesn’t rival the crowd at a middle school volleyball game — and stick to the facts.

At least MSU’s football team has won five of its last 17 games against the Wolverines.

The last time U-M won in East Lansing, MSU senior guard Drew Neitzel wasn’t even in high school.

U-M is one of the bottom two teams in the Big Ten in scoring offense, scoring defense, field goal percentage, field goal defense, rebounding and assists. When you have those numbers, there aren’t going to be many victories.

It could be worse, though. On March 4, 2000, MSU trounced U-M 114-63 at Breslin Center.

Of course, the Spartans went on to conquer the world and the Wolverines went home with a lesson:

Don’t mess with your big brother.

Joey Nowak is a State News men’s basketball reporter. He can be reached at nowakjo2@msu.edu.

Published on Thursday, January 24, 2008