Round two

Cleaves, rowdy fans await 'M'

The last time Michigan played Michigan State, Spartans point guard Mateen Cleaves did not play well. So, Michigan State lost.

Since the 79-69 Michigan victory on Jan. 10, Cleaves has elevated his game, and with it his team, to the top of the Big Ten. The Spartans, at 11-2 (18-5 overall), lead the conference. And, as Michigan coach Brian Ellerbe said yesterday, Cleaves "could be one of the three or four best point guards in the country. He would probably be your MVP right now in the Big Ten."

Strong praise, indeed, but Ellerbe is not alone in his assessment of the Spartans' sophomore leader. Coaches and players around the Big Ten are heaping praise on the dynamic point guard, and the rule seems to be that as Cleaves goes, so goes Michiga

AP PHOTO Michigan State guard Mateen Cleaves has the uncanny ability to make his teammates better. The Spartans have lost just one game in which Cleaves has collected more than five assists.

n State.

"He's what makes their team tick," Louis Bullock said. "Everyone feeds off of him."

All of this makes the job ahead of Michigan (8-4, 18-7), if not an easy one, at least one that is clearly defined: stop Cleaves. The task presents itself tonight at 7:35, as Michigan travels to East Lansing to face the Spartans at the Breslin Center.

And while Cleaves gets plenty of attention for his tendency to score in spurts, there's another, less prominent statistic that's far more impressive than his 15.7 points per game.

Michigan State is 18-1 when Cleaves has at least six assists. When he has five or fewer, the Spartans are winless in three games.

But as the assists-to-victories ratio suggests, the Spartans have not vaulted to the top of the Big Ten on one set of shoulders alone. In fact, the opposite is true.

In their past six games, the Spartans have been led in scoring by five different people. Cleaves, Jason Klein, Antonio Smith, Morris Peterson and Charlie Bell have all taken on some of the scoring burden in recent weeks. And this, more than any other reason, is why Ellerbe is so concerned with Cleaves.

"What you want to do is keep him from creating to make the other guys better," Ellerbe said. "The other guys can hurt you when you only think about him."

On Saturday, against Minnesota, it was Klein that hurt the Gophers. Minnesota started the second half shadowing Cleaves, and Klein scored the Spartans' first 11 points after the break by hitting an array of open jumpers. He finished the game with 19 points on 5-of-8 3-point shooting. Cleaves, not surprisingly, had 10 assists, and the Spartans won the game.

In the Spartans' 11-point victory over then-No. 24 Iowa on Feb. 7, it was Smith who did the scoring, as he tied a career high with 17 points. Add that to his nine rebounds per game, throw in Klein, and toss in senior DuJuan Wiley's 78.1-percent shooting from the field in the past eight games - yes, he makes 78.1 percent - and the one-dimensional Spartans suddenly don't look so one dimensional anymore.

And, of course, there's the Breslin Center crowd. The rowdy fans are generally much louder than anything the Wolverines are used to hearing inside Crisler Library, er, Arena, and if there's one game all year that Johnny Spirit and company gear up for, this is the one. Even in last year's meeting, when neither the Spartans nor the Wolverines had a shot at winning the Big Ten, Louis Bullock had a rough time with the East Lansing faithful.

"They don't even know me, and they hate me," Bullock said. "I don't understand. They don't know me as a person. They'll find anything to say.

"The student section is right behind the (television commentators), so you hear some things that maybe should be on HBO."

Also affecting Michigan, perhaps even more so than the hostile crowd, will be the status of senior power forward Maceo Baston. Baston sat out last Wednesday's game against Ohio State with a fracture in his foot, and is expected to be out for at least another week.

02-17-98