Sharp: Spartans still miles ahead of Wolverines
Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press writes that UM hasn’t come close to closing the gap with MSU. Any Spartans fan or Tom Izzo will tell you though that the bar for MSU is far beyond just being superior to Michigan. The expectation in East Lansing is the Big Ten title and Final Fours. Unfortunately, just being better than UM isn’t a lofty enough goal these days.
It’s great that the Wolverines will be returning to the NCAA tournament for the first time in eight years, but in the parochial debate of who rules between the Blue and the Green, it’s barely a blip. If the opposite rims of the Grand Canyon moved a yard closer to each other, would anyone notice?
Let U-M put together a five-year stretch of conference championships, No. 1 NCAA tournament seeds and Final Fours, and you can put Michigan and Michigan State basketball in the same sentence.