The Risks Paid Off At Michigan State, Arizona
3/30/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 30, 2001
By EDDIE PELLS
AP Sports Writer
MINNEAPOLIS - Charlie Bell remembers the raised eyebrows, the shoulder shrugs and those looks of dismay when he told friends where he was going to play basketball.
"A lot of people wondered why," he said. Michigan State, after all, wasn't Michigan.
When Eugene Edgerson announced where he was going to school, friends treated him the same way.
"Arizona was soft," Edgerson said, recalling the label the Wildcats couldn't shed in the mid-90s.
National championships and trips to the Final Four have shattered those stereotypes. With the teams playing Saturday in the first national semifinal, it seems like decades, not mere years, since the decision to play basketball at Michigan State or Arizona was such a huge leap of faith.
"I saw the coach was a hard worker," Bell said. "I knew we had a chance to do some great things."
Four Big Ten titles, three Final Four trips and one national title later, Bell looks like a fortune teller.
Still, the prospect of four years at Michigan State didn't seem like such a great deal in 1997, after the team went 9-9 in the Big Ten for the second straight year.
An unknown former assistant, Tom Izzo, was still trying to establish himself in the shadow of Jud Heathcoate, whose program remained solid but still second-tier in the 15 seasons after Magic Johnson and the national title.
Across the state, the Fab Five and the era of Michigan dominance was in full swing. It was still largely a state where young kids grew up dreaming of playing for titles in Wolverine maize and blue, not heading to the lesser-known outpost of East Lansing, 65 miles to the north.
"My first couple years, they were rough both on the court and in the recruiting," Izzo said. "It was difficult to get started. I was a new coach, unproven. I had to do a lot of selling."
The next great chapter of Michigan State history is still being written. The Spartans have a chance to become the first team since the 1991-92 Duke Blue Devils to win consecutive titles. They're only the ninth team to make three straight Final Fours.
Even those who took the chance are somewhat surprised.
"I definitely didn't expect everything that we've achieved here in my four years," senior forward Andre Hutson said.
At least Michigan State had a title in its past. Arizona couldn't even claim that.
The Wildcats earned the reputation as a soft-as-butter program prone to unsightly losses when the world was watching.
In 1993, they became just the second No. 2 seed to lose to a No. 15 in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. Their first-round flops (1992, '93, '95) defined them better than their single trip to the Final Four in 1994. Common in those days were live TV shots of low-seeded teams celebrating on selection day when they learned Arizona was their first-round opponent.
"A lot of people said, `Why are you going to Arizona, it's a finesse school?"' said Edgerson, a New Orleans native. "I never saw it as that. I saw it as going to a school with a good coach, good players and a good winning percentage."
Edgerson was on the 1997 team that won the title, shocking a nation of basketball fans who never envisioned the Wildcats moving past the second round.
Since then, Arizona has shed its soft image, which has made it easy for coach Lute Olson to sell his program as a national powerhouse.
"You see Duke and, because they're such a nationally known program, they're able to draw kids from all over the place," Olson said. "With us, the guys have been brought into the program because we felt they would fit well in the mix. And then we've had guys that other people overlooked."
Among them are Gilbert Arenas, a North Hollywood kid who barely drew a sniff from recruiters. He leads the Wildcats in scoring.
Another guard, Jason Gardner, approached Arizona from a much different angle. A highly recruited star, he went to the Indianapolis high school where Arizona practiced before it won the national title in 1997. He was desperate to watch practice, but security guards shooed him away. But clearly, Arizona had caught his eye.
"Obviously, you have something in your favor when you have a national championship under your belt," Edgerson said. "Going to some Final Fours can change a lot of minds."
