MILWAUKEE -- As Mount St. Mary's was leaving its locker room at the Bradley Center before last night's opening-round game against Michigan State in the NCAA tournament Midwest Regional, senior forward Newton Gayle had a rather profound message for his teammates.
"Don't lay down for nothing," muttered Gayle, the team's emotional leader.
The Mountaineers didn't lay down against the top-seeded Spartans. Nor were they rolled over, as had been the case against Kentucky in the school's previous tournament appearance four years ago. The No. 16 seed hung with the Big Ten champions for nearly a half.
It was then that Michigan State picked up its defensive pressure, and Mount St. Mary's had trouble scoring. The result was a 14-point halftime deficit that grew to 32 in the second half, and eventually turned into a 76-53 defeat.
Mount St. Mary's coach Jim Phelan didn't get an early 70th birthday present or his 801st career victory. Then again, he didn't really expect either. Instead, both he and his Mountaineers got a measure of respect by cutting their 46-point tournament defeat to the Wildcats from 1995 in half.
"We went into this game knowing full well what we were going to run into," said Phelan, whose last visit to this city was 46 years ago while playing for the Quantico Marines. "They are very solid, very deep and very hard to beat."
Mount St. Mary's (15-15) came out strong, hitting six of its first 11 shots to take a surprising 14-11 lead. The Mountaineers still trailed by only six, 25-19, on a three-point shot by senior forward Tony Hayden with 5: 36 left in the first half.
Hayden thought what might have hurt the Mountaineers was the number of television timeouts. Even though Mount St. Mary's stayed in the game through the first four timeouts, the 2 1/2-minute breaks seemed to be an eternity for a team not used to playing on television.
"I didn't know there would be so many timeouts," said Hayden. "I think it was hard to stay in a flow."
After combining for their team's first 16 points and 18 of the first 19, freshman center Melvin Whitaker and junior guard Greg Harris were shut down by Michigan State (30-4). Whitaker led the Mountaineers with 13 points, but wasn't much of a factor after the first 10 minutes. Harris scored 11 of his 12 points in the first half.
"We didn't take them lightly, they were just hitting their shots," said All-American guard Mateen Cleaves. "But the guys around the perimeter stepped it up defensively and the guys did a good job on Whitaker inside."
"They just decided to clamp down," said Harris, who missed all six shots he attempted in the second half to finish four of 13 from the field.
The Mountaineers tried to let anybody but Cleaves beat them by double-teaming the senior guard, and that's what happened. Cleaves took only eight shots and finished with just eight points, but reserve forward A.J. Granger scored a game-high 15 points and senior forward Antonio Smith had 14 and led a 46-22 domination on the boards with 12 rebounds.
Cleaves gave credit to Phelan for the strategy to double-team him and take away Michigan State's transition game.
"They did a good job of taking me away [from the ball]," said Cleaves. "That was the first time I can remember being double-teamed in the backcourt. Their coach has a lot of experience and they had a good game plan."
While some of his teammates thought that Michigan State's strength inside played a major factor in the outcome, Whitaker didn't. Though continuing to show flashes of future stardom, Whitaker eventually seemed to wear down as the Spartans kept throwing fresh bodies at him.
"I feel like we didn't perform like we should have," Whitaker said as he sat alone in the team's locker room after the game. "I don't know what it was, but it was definitely not their strength."
Trailing 38-24 at halftime, Mount St. Mary's didn't score a basket in the second half until a three-point shot by sophomore guard Aaron Herbert of Randallstown cut Michigan State's lead to 19, 50-31, with 14: 38 remaining in the game. The Mountaineers would get no closer.
The Spartans had built their lead to 72-40 before Michigan State coach Tom Izzo cleared his bench and the Mountaineers made the final score a bit more respectable on a couple late threes by sophomore guards Jason Grace and Stephen Moore.
The defeat ended a Cinderella run into the tournament for Mount St. Mary's, a regular-season disappointment in the Northeast Conference before winning the league's tournament with three straight victories over higher seeds.
The victory put Michigan State into tomorrow's second-round against No. 9 Mississippi, which defeated No. 8 seed Villanova, 72-70. No. 13 seed Oklahoma, which upset No. 4 seed Arizona earlier in the day, will play No. 5 seed North Carolina-Charlotte.
"The hard defense, that's the way they play," Phelan said as he took a long walk from the locker room to a post-game news conference. "We knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time. We knew it was going to be extremely difficult and it was."
Extremely difficult, but much better than it was four years ago against Kentucky.
Mt. St. Mary's Min FG FT R A PF Pts
Balgac 13 0-1 0-0 1 1 1 0
Hayden 29 1-5 0-0 4 2 1 3
Whitaker 34 5-14 3-4 4 0 4 13
Harris 38 4-13 3-4 2 2 2 12
Herbert 28 3-7 3-4 2 3 2 12
Gayle 8 0-2 1-2 0 0 3 1
Bethel 10 0-2 0-0 2 2 1 0
Lloyd 3 0-1 0-0 1 1 0 0
Moore 1 1-1 0-0 0 1 0 3
Wilson 23 1-3 3-4 1 0 0 6
Grace 1 1-1 0-0 0 0 0 3
Kessler 4 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0
Springer 8 0-0 0-0 1 0 2 0
Totals 200 16-50 13-18 18 12 17 53
Percentages: FG -- .320, FT -- .722. 3-point goals: 8-18, .444 (Hayden 1-3, Whitaker 0-2, Harris 1-4,Herbert 3-4, Bethel 0-1, Moore 1-1, Wilson 1-2, Grace 1-1). Team rebounds: 4. Blocked shots: 2 (Balgac, Kessler). Turnovers: 15 (Harris 3,Herbert 3, Bethel 2, Wilson 2, Balgac, Gayle,Hayden, Whitaker). Steals: 10 (Harris 4, Herbert2, Whitaker 2, Gayle, Lloyd). Technical fouls: None.
Michigan State Min FG FT R A PF Pts
A Smith 18 5-8 4-4 12 0 3 14
Klein 25 4-9 0-0 8 4 1 9
Hutson 20 3-3 5-6 2 1 5 11
Cleaves 25 3-8 1-1 1 8 3 8
Bell 19 3-6 0-0 3 0 1 6
Kelley 21 1-5 0-0 1 1 0 3
Guess 6 1-2 0-0 1 0 0 2
Cherry 2 0-1 0-0 1 0 0 0
Davis 11 0-1 0-0 0 2 1 0
B Smith 4 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Peterson 24 4-8 0-0 12 1 4 8
Granger 25 5-7 4-4 5 2 1 15
Totals 200 29-58 14-15 46 19 19 76
Percentages: FG -- .500, FT -- .933. 3-point goals: 4-16, .250 (Klein 1-5, Cleaves 1-4, Bell 0-1,Kelley 1-2, Guess 0-1, Davis 0-1, Peterson 0-1,Granger 1-1). Team rebounds: None. Blocked shots: 5 (Peterson 2, Granger, Kelley, Hutson). Turnovers: 19 (Peterson 4, Bell 3, A Smith 2,Davis 2, Hutson 2, B Smith, Cleaves, Granger,Guess, Kelley, Klein). Steals: 10 (Hutson 2,Kelley 2, A Smith, Bell, Cleaves, Granger, Klein,Peterson). Technical fouls: None. Halftime: Michigan State 38, Mount St. Mary's 24.
Pub Date: 3/13/99