Hlas: MSU Spartans are enemies of (our) state

What are the most-heartbreaking game-nights of this millennium for Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa? Ones that involve the Spartans of Michigan State, that's what.

Iowa:

'It feels like it was 10 years ago. It literally does. It's so far back. That one's ancient history,' Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz said Tuesday.

Does it feel like 10 years ago to you, dear Hawkeye fans, or does it feel like the wound is far from healed?

It was about 22 months ago in Indianapolis. It was as gutted as a team and its followers ever get.

Iowa had gone ahead of Michigan State 13-9 in the Big Ten championship game on an 85-yard pass from C.J. Beathard to Tevaun Smith in the first 11 seconds of the fourth quarter. Iowa's offense had been stymied to that point, but that play (and the fact the Hawkeyes' defense had kept MSU out of the end zone) made it feel like Iowa would take a 13-0 record and Big Ten title to the College Football Playoff.

When the Spartans got the ball five minutes later, no one could have imagined what would follow. It was a 22-play, 82-yard drive that concluded with freshman running back LJ Scott somehow refusing to be tackled. He stretched the ball across the goal line just before his knee touched the turf for a 1-yard TD with 27 seconds left.

Inches. Chances like that come our way less often than full solar eclipses.

Iowa State:

It was March 2000, the NCAA men's basketball tournament Midwest Region final.

It was in Auburn Hills, Mich., making it a de facto home game for No. 1-seed Michigan State against the No. 2-seed Cyclones.

With ISU up by one point and 3:43 left, the Cyclones' Paul Shirley scored in the lane to give his team a 3-point lead with a chance to go up 4, since he was fouled by the Spartans' Charlie Bell. Except it wasn't quite called that way.

The officials huddled, then decided it was a double foul, holding on Bell, charging on Shirley. Bizarre. The basket didn't count and it was Shirley's fifth foul.

There was still time left, but you knew right then how the game would end. That was the real national-title game. Michigan State went on to capture the championship, winning its national semifinal by 12 points and the final by 13.

No basketball team from Iowa has ever come as close to the Final Four since.

Northern Iowa:

UNI's most-crushing game since 2000 isn't as clear-cut as Iowa's and Iowa State's.

You could make a strong case the Panthers' 21-16 football loss to Appalachian State in the 2005 NCAA I-AA championship. UNI led 16-7 at halftime.

I was among many who believed UNI would return to the title contest relatively soon, and might win it. It reached the semifinals three years later, but hasn't gone that deep in the playoffs since.

However, I'll tab the Panthers' 59-52 loss in the 2010 NCAA Midwest Region semifinals in St. Louis as more painful. Which would be remembered longer and more fondly, an FCS football title or a trip to the Final Four?

Which Virginia mid-major made more of a ripple, James Madison's FCS football national-title team of last season or George Mason's men's Final Four club of 2006? It's George Mason in a slam-dunk.

Oh, the team that eliminated UNI in that Sweet 16 was, yes, Michigan State.

UNI, fresh off a second-round stunner over top-seeded Kansas in Oklahoma City, led the Spartans 29-22 at halftime.

'Northern Iowa is the better team,' Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl told me at halftime. His team had won the other Midwest semifinal earlier that night.

But UNI wasn't better in the second half. The game was tied with 2:52 left. The Panthers scored just one point after that.

It was one of seven MSU clubs Tom Izzo has taken to Final Fours. Greedy!

UNI lost to Rick Pitino's Louisville team in the second round of the 2015 NCAA tourney. It's better to have been defeated by Izzo and Michigan State than Pitino and whomever he coached, but that's a different essay.