INDIANAPOLIS — Meet The Flintstones: Mateen Cleaves, Charlie Bell and Morris Peterson, three Michigan State starters from Flint, Mich.
"I talk about my city a lot," Cleaves said of the tough automaking town of 90,000 about an hour north of Detroit. "It's a very unique situation in Flint. It's a small community. Everybody gets along, everybody supports each other. Anytime I get a free weekend, I go home and just walk through the neighborhood."
The teammates, known as The Flintstones, went to different high schools but knew each other growing up. A fourth player from Flint, Antonio Smith, was on Michigan State's Final Four team last year, then graduated.
"We definitely brought some glory back to Flint," Peterson said. "We've given the young people something to shoot for. When I go back there in the summer, I always hear kids saying they want to get better so they can be like us."
Big deal, says Florida's Teddy DuPay.
"I lived in Flint for six years, up until the third grade," DuPay said. "It doesn't matter where you come from or how old you are. The game is played between the lines."
DOME SHOOTING?: The 36 percent combined shooting in Saturday's semifinal games had nothing to do with the domed arena, the Michigan State and Florida players said.
"You have to give credit to the defense," Michigan State's Morris Peterson said Sunday. "But sometimes when you get in the big games, you get excited. Your adrenaline starts pumping. I think it's just a matter of feeling comfortable."
Peterson, who had four points at halftime, shot 6-for-10 in the second half and finished with 20 points in the Spartans' 53-41 victory over Wisconsin.
"I don't think it has anything to do with playing in the dome or anything," teammate A.J. Granger said. "It was just a matter of a little bit of nerves there at the beginning. And teams are playing better defense. It's just harder to shoot the ball."
Whenever the NCAA visits a domed arena for the Final Four, which is every year nowadays, poor shooting is blamed on the wide-open spaces, poor depth perception, even gusts of wind inside the pressurized enclosures.
But since 1982, when the Super Dome in New Orleans was the first domed Final Four site, the combined shooting percentages in championship games are almost identical: .471 in the seven non-dome finals and .469 in the 11 games in domes.
"We've had experience in a domed setting, so we had no excuses," said Florida's Mike Miller, who had 10 points but shot only 3-for-13 against the Tar Heels. "I don't think — for any of the four teams — it can be a real excuse."
FAMILY TIES: Basketball talent runs in the family for Morris Peterson. The Michigan State forward's second cousin is Jonathan Bender, who bypassed college and is a rookie this season for the Indiana Pacers.
The family rivalry is very strong, said Peterson's mother, Valarie Peterson.
"He still plays games against the family, just different ones," she said of her son.
For example, Peterson competes with his brother-in-law to see which one can eat the most. With Bender, it's who can score the most.
"Since Jon is on the bench mostly, Morris is winning," Valarie Peterson said. "But Jon was drafted No. 5, and to win, Morris has to go under that."
Peterson's parents were basketball coaches in Flint, Mich., and both his sisters played in college.
KEADY TAKES OFFICE: Purdue coach Gene Keady became president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches on Sunday and was named the organization's Division I coach of the year.
The Boilermakers, who beat NCAA finalists Michigan State and Florida during the regular season, finished 24-10 after a 64-60 loss to Wisconsin in the West Regional finals. Keady earlier was named Big Ten coach of the year.
Keady, the coach at Purdue for 20 years, also was the NABC coach of the year in 1994, when Glenn Robinson led the Boilermakers to a No. 1 seed. Purdue also fell one game short of the Final Four that year, losing to Duke in the regional finals.
ANCIENT HISTORY: Florida and Michigan State have played each other only once. The Gators won 83-59 in 1987 at the Fiesta Bowl Classic in Tucson, Ariz.
The schools' football teams did meet more recently. Michigan State beat Florida 37-34 in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1.