MSU’s Merchant happy for familiar feeling of NCAAs

Being in the NCAA Tournament, that’s a familiar feeling for Suzy Merchant.

Being at home for 24 consecutive days — and during a season, no less — well, that was different. And difficult.

“It wasn’t easy,” Merchant said earlier this week, moments after arriving in Columbia, South Carolina, for Friday’s first-round NCAA Tournament game against Arizona State. “It was a long 24 days.

“I felt like I was disappointing people by not being there, myself included. I couldn’t help what was going on, but I certainly wanted to.

“I felt like I needed to get back for a lot of reasons, certainly getting us where we needed to be.”

Merchant, the 10th-year coach of Michigan State women’s basketball, fainted during a game Jan. 1, and was taken to a Lansing hospital. She missed one game before returning, but in mid-January, athletic director Mark Hollis mandated she take a leave of absence.

Further tests had revealed possible heart concerns, and Merchant missed the next three-plus weeks before returning in mid-February.

The Spartans went 3-3 in her absence, coached by Amaka Agugua.

“On a different pace, for sure, a different schedule,” Merchant said, recalling those days. “It was hard. The one thing that was positive, though, I got to be a little bit more present in my kids’ lives as a parent. This job isn’t very conducive to being a mom at times, and that was pretty cool, having the opportunity to connect with them, pick them up from school, help them with their homework, be right there.

“I did try to fill my day a lot with that, and really I just tried to rest and get this heart issue (under control).

“In the end, I feel I got myself where I wanted to be.”

The Spartans (21-11) are in the NCAA Tournament for the eighth time in nine years, and are the fourth of just four Big Ten teams to make it, despite finishing sixth in the conference in the regular season — two games behind third-place Michigan, which didn’t make the cut.

Michigan State had a stronger finish to earn a No. 9 seed, winning five of its last seven games, including two over Michigan, once in the regular season in Ann Arbor and once in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals.

Michigan State played league champion Maryland, an eventual No. 3 seed, pretty tough in the semifinals, before losing. The Spartans also beat a very good Ohio State team during the regular season, and finished with five top-50 wins.

That was enough to get them off the bubble, in the Selection Committee’s eyes, but the early draw is a very difficult one, starting with an Arizona State team that features one of the best defenses Michigan State will have seen all season — 33rd nationally, allowing 57.3 points a game — and a significant presence in the paint, while playing out of the top RPI conference in the country, the Pacific-12.

“We’re going to have to work hard for everything,” said Merchant, “that’s for sure.”

Certainly, Michigan State will lean hard on senior Tori Jankoska, 10th in the nation at 22.5 points a game.

Even if the Spartans can get past Arizona State (19-12) — coached by Charli Turner Thorne, who coached the World University Games team to a gold medal in 2009, with Merchant as an assistant — No. 1 seed South Carolina probably awaits, playing on its home court.

That’s how the NCAA Tournament works, with the top seeds in the tournament hosting the first two rounds. That’s a huge advantage, with more than 80 percent of host schools making the Sweet 16. The one time Michigan State made a Sweet 16 under Merchant, in 2008-09, it hosted the first two games.

Last year, the Spartans were eligible to host the first two games, but had to travel, instead, because the Breslin Center was booked for girls basketball finals. They ended up losing their second game, on a controversial call to the new host team, Mississippi State.

So Merchant knows her team has its work cut out for it this weekend, but that’s nothing new. Not this year, anyway.

“I think you always go, when you open the weekend, ‘Let’s win the weekend,’ ” she said. “Going into the weekend, it’s all about matchups. Certain teams you get, you match up better than other teams, even in our league it’s like that.

“We beat Ohio State, but struggle to beat Maryland’s size and power, but Ohio State can beat Maryland.

“It’s all about matchups.”

Merchant will take talking about matchups over medicals, especially her own, all day, every day.

tpaul@detroitnews.com

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No. 9 Michigan State vs. No. 8 Arizona State

Tip-off: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Colonial Life Arena, Columbia, S.C.

TV/radio: ESPN2/None

Records: Michigan State 21-11, Arizona State 19-12

Series: First meeting