Michigan State Players Unsure of What to Expect From Crimson

In the wake of Harvard’s upset victory over the Cincinnati Bearcats in the NCAA Tournament round of 64 here on Thursday, the Back Page caught up with some key players for Michigan State, the four seed in the East region and the Crimson’s opponent in Saturday’s round of 32.

ADREIAN PAYNE, Senior Center

“I was watching a little bit on TV and I heard that they don’t run a lot or push the ball a lot, so it’s probably sort of a team like Wisconsin maybe, you know they’re really smart and they don’t turn the ball over a lot. They’re just solid, so we’re just going to have to come out and be solid too because they’re not going to be doing anything crazy.”

BRANDEN DAWSON, Junior forward

“We really didn’t watch a lot of their game. We were in here in the locker room and we watched a little of it towards the end. Those guys have great guards, they play solid, they don’t make mistakes.”

ALVIN ELLIS III, Freshman guard

“We’re not familiar with them, but we have managers and stuff to do research on them, and we’re going to watch some film tonight and tomorrow and learn their plays and see what it takes on Saturday.”

KEITH APPLING, Senior guard

“A lot of people had those guys picked to win that game [against Cincinnati]. Me, honestly, I thought that Cincinnati's athleticism would take over, but Harvard, they just seem like a grind it out team that can win many different ways.”

MATT COSTELLO, Sophomore forward

“We’ll learn a lot tonight. That’s the plan. I’m not quite sure what’s going with that but we’ll watch a lot of film tonight and see what we can do.”