Michigan State University Athletics
NCAA Champions!
4/3/2000 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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April 3, 2000
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - This time there was no Magic, just Mateen.
Michigan State, with Magic Johnson cheering in the stands, won its second national championship as Mateen Cleaves led the Spartans to an 89-76 victory over Florida on Monday night.
It was 21 years ago that the championship game between Michigan State and Indiana State - Magic vs. Bird - changed the landscape of college basketball.
This one may not have the magnitude, but it had the drama thanks to Cleaves, the Spartans' limping leader.
After helping the Spartans build a 43-32 halftime lead by scoring 13 points, including going 3-for-3 from 3-point range, and negating Florida's vaunted full-court pressure with his ballhandling and passing, Cleaves rolled his right ankle early in the second half and had to go to the locker room.
When he left with 16:18 to play the Spartans led 50-44. His teammates got the lead to 58-50 by the time he returned 4:29 later. But the senior guard who missed the first 13 games of the season while recovering from a stress fracture in his right foot, was again the team's emotional leader.
His long pass to Morris Peterson for a layup made it 60-50. He was leveled while setting a screen a few minutes later but it was enough to spring A.J. Granger for a 3-pointer that started a 16-6 run that made it 84-66 and put the game away.
Cleaves certainly didn't do it by himself.
Peterson finished with 21 points on 7-for-14 shooting and Granger had 19 and was 7-for-11 from the field.
Cleaves was 7-for-11 from the field - all the shots coming before he was injured - and had 18 points and four assists.
The Spartans (32-7), the only top-seeded team to reach the Final Four, finished 33-for-59 from the field (56 percent), the best against Florida's frantic pace by far in the tournament. The previous best was 43 percent by top-ranked Duke in the regional semifinals.
Michigan State never seemed fazed by the pressure, beating it early with long passes. The Spartans were their usual efficient selves when they did run their halfcourt game, getting good looks and crashing the boards when they missed.
The Michigan State bench was considered a key to any chance the Spartans had. Florida's reserves had outscored it 175-45 in the tournament, but Jason Richardson had nine points as the Spartans' backups came up big.
Udonis Haslem had a season-high 27 points for the fifth-seeded Gators (29-9), while Brent Wright added 13.
The 1979 final is still the highest-rated telecast of an NCAA basketball game - the one that hooked the nation on the NCAA tournament.
Michigan State, which beat Wisconsin 53-41 in an ugly all-Big Ten national semifinal, won all six games on its title run by at least 11 points.
The Spartans closed the season with 11 straight wins and are the first Big Ten team to win it all since Michigan in 1989.
Florida, looking to become the fourth straight Southeastern Conference team to win the national championship in an even-numbered year, was making its first appearance in a championship game.
The Gators had seven freshmen and sophomores in their 10-man rotation and this was the first game in the tournament that their lack of experience showed.
Cleaves had two 3-pointers in the 14-3 run that gave the Spartans a 33-20 lead with 6:51 to play, but a three-point play by Haslem and a basket by Donnell Harvey got the Gators within 35-29 with 4:05 left.
Charlie Bell and Cleaves sandwiched 3s around a layup by Haslem and the Spartans had a 43-32 halftime lead.
By JIM O'CONNELL
AP Basketball Writer
