MSU and McNeal

The build-up to Thursdays' opening round game against Michigan State will reach a fever pitch soon. Two storylines will dominate the week: Izzo/Crean, and McNeal's injury. The mentor v mentee storyline will be old quickly, but we'll hear the ins and outs of that all week. Then there's McNeal - will he or won't he play.

Great stat for this matchup: MSU is in the NCAA tourney for the 10th straight year -- the second-longest streak in Big 10 history. Impressive.

Tipoff on Thursday night is scheduled for 6:20pm CDT. Dick Enberg and Jay Bilas will broadcast the game for CBS Sports. GoMarquette.com has the details.

Anyway, a few media updates:

• JS on the 'mixed emotions' of drawing Izzo's Spartans.
• Rosiak on MU's depth -- hoping to make up for McNeal. Sure doesnt sound like he'll play.

"I'm not holding out great hope," said Crean. "Would we love it? Would he love it? No question about it. Are we going to go into the week planning on having him? Probably not. But we'll just wait and see how it turns out, see what goes on with him. We'd love to have him but it's not there yet."

• Detroit Free-Press on 'Friend to Foe'

"It's never fun to play against some of your best friends, and I've had to do that on more than a couple of occasions," Izzo said. "It'll be weird ... you know, there aren't many secrets. Not only do we have 20 tapes on each other, we kind of know each other's programs."

• Chris Jenkins of the AP on the Izzo-Crean relationship.