SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Travis Trice was asked on Saturday afternoon what his reaction would be if he made it to a Final Four on Sunday.
“I’m not much of a crier,” the Michigan State senior point said. “But I might shed a couple.”
When Michigan State’s players were jumping up and down and chanting on a podium at center court on Sunday afternoon at the Carrier Dome following their 76-70 win over Louisville, Trice was the only one not among them.
Trice was on his knees, curled into a ball near the free throw line sobbing uncontrollably with his parents standing over him.
He snapped out of it when a stadium worker called to him.
“Travis, you need to collect a trophy, buddy,” she said.
Trice got up and got onto the podium to accept his Most Valuable Player trophy for the East region. But when they called his name, he stood by himself in the back corner, a dazed look on his face and a Final Four hat on his head.
For the 6-foot, 170-pound guard who came to East Lansing with the possibility of being a career back-up, what happened on Sunday brought out an unexpected wave of emotion. His parents and teammates said it was the first time they’d seen him cry in his college basketball career.
“I look back at all I’ve been through these last four years, and not only myself but my family and our team, we’ve been through a lot this year,” Trice said. “It was kind of a combination of all those.”
Trice had a game-high 17 points to lead Michigan State to the win. In four NCAA tournament games, he averaged 19.7 points in earning regional MVP honors.
As a senior, Trice played perhaps biggest role in leading Michigan State back to its promised land.
“I can’t even put it into words, just all the summers, being so close last year, being like four minutes away and not getting it,” Trice said. “It makes it worth it. You can’t put it into words, really.”
The moment, with Travis Sr. and Julie Trice huddled over their joyous son, marked the combination of a hectic month for the close-knit family. Sunday marked the third straight week the two parents had driven through the night to see their son play.
Travis Sr. coaches Huber Heights Wayne, a high school team in Ohio, and the state tournament had called for late Saturday games for three straight weeks.
That called for overnight drives to Chicago for the Big Ten tournament and Charlotte, North Carolina for the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, as both Wayne High School and the Spartans kept winning.
The family entered the weekend hoping it would need to do a seven-hour overnight drive for the third straight weekend, with Wayne playing in the state semifinals and finals on Friday and Saturday night.
When the state title game tipped off Saturday night, Trice looked for a video stream online of the game, but couldn’t find one. So he spent his Saturday night before the game nervously getting text updates.
The last one said that his dad had won his first state title as a coach.
“I was so happy for them,” Trice said. “This is probably one of the best weekends of my life.”
The Trices left Columbus, Ohio, at 1 a.m. bound for Syracuse. At 8:30 a.m., Spartans coach Tom Izzo saw them walk into the team hotel lobby with pillows in hand, ready to go from state title to Final Four berth
“It was like it was an omen that was supposed to happen,” Izzo said.
After Trice was overjoyed for his parents on Saturday, on Sunday it was Trice’s parents time to be happy for him.
When the deeply religious Trice was overcome with emotion on the court, he told his parents he didn’t feel worthy of such a moment.
“But for such a time as this, Travis is so worthy,” Julie Trice, his mother, said. “I don’t know another kid that deserves this moment.”
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Michigan State's Travis Trice overcome with emotion after qualifying for Final Four - MLive.com
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