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Injured Cleaves leds Spartans to championship

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS - 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 last 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.