The player-of-the-year candidate and spirited senior point guard won't be on the floor when the Spartans play at North Carolina, against Arizona or even at Kentucky. But slow down. The Spartans aren't dead yet. They actually planned for this, sort of. David Thomas, a 6-7 (that's right) junior point guard, sat out last season prepping for this purpose.

	“	We redshirted David Thomas for a reason. Mateen told him his time came a little quicker. ”
		— Michigan State coach Tom Izzo

"Michigan State has been through this before when Thomas Kelley got hurt two years ago," said former assistant and current Marquette coach Tom Crean. "Mateen will come back and they'll be ready to roll. We worked Thomas at the point last year. That was the plan. We never knew if Mateen was going to stay and when (reserve point) Doug Davis left (for Miami of Ohio) we weren't going to recruit another point. It was up to Thomas."

The reason it was left up to Thomas and not an incoming freshman was the Spartans' pursuit of prep point guard Marcus Taylor. The Spartans were focused on signing the top-flight Lansing prospect, and eventually got the commitment. He'll sign in November.

"We redshirted David Thomas for a reason," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. "Mateen told him his time came a little quicker."

Will it be the same as having Cleaves? No. But they're not vulnerable, either, if Thomas can handle a press and get the ball to Morris Peterson and Bell on the wings, Mike Chappell from 15 feet in or Andre Hutson and A.J. Granger inside.

Feeling their pain

Michigan State is the second team to lose a critical player early in practice. DePaul is waiting for sophomore forward Lance Williams to recover from a broken bone, too. Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins can relate to the madness of losing a player before the first game. Dion Glover was lost for the season on the first day of practice after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament a year ago. "It's horrible," Cremins said. "We knew 24 hours later that it was for the whole year. We had a big recruiting weekend planned and that was ruined. It's a little different if a guy is out for 4-8 weeks. Nothing is worse than what happened to us." Glover opted to declare for the draft in June, rather than come back for his junior season. He was taken by Atlanta in the first round.

Thomas can see over a defender. The 6-2 Cleaves can't. Thomas can post-up a point. Cleaves can't. Thomas can give the Spartans a fifth rebounder. Cleaves can't be expected to rebound.

"I just want to assert myself, help lead and run the team," Thomas said. "My size is a plus. I can look over the smaller defenders to make an entry pass. I can get rebounds. I just have to learn how to protect the ball better."

Thomas spent the summer working with Cleaves and former Michigan State point guard Eric Snow. Thomas is still trying to blow by smaller, quicker ball-handlers but he's far exceeded the expectations.

Cleaves' inspirational speeches in the locker room and timeout huddle won't be missed because the two-time Big Ten player of the year will be a fixture on the bench. That role doesn't have to change.

"David Thomas doesn't have to do a lot," Crean said. "It might be tougher early to compete for the national title but Mateen will be back. You can't forget that Tom has been national coach of the year. They'll have tough games early, but they'll find a way to be there in the end."

Hefty precedent
Craig Thompson, the first-year commissioner of the Mountain West Conference, wasn't going to let any rule slide at the first meeting. But he didn't think anyone would challenge him, especially the coach in the host city.

UNLV coach Bill Bayno missed a mandatory coaches meeting last Thursday in Las Vegas. For the transgression, Bayno was suspended for the MWC opener against Brigham Young on Jan. 10. The UNLV coach shouldn't bother with an appeal.

"I asked our council if I should cut him some slack and they all said no," said Thompson, who is chair of the NCAA men's basketball committee this season. "He didn't commit an NCAA infraction but there wasn't a gray area. He tested things. There was no excuse for it, especially in Las Vegas."

Bayno said he didn't think it was mandatory and was extremely upset with the ruling.

"It sends a message to me that the rules will be enforced by our council," Thompson said. "Hopefully the other 151 coaches in the MWC will take notice."

Homeless team
West Virginia's plight keeps getting worse. Not only are the Mountaineers technically on the road for every home game because of suspected asbestos at WVU Coliseum, but they're not even in their gym for practice. The Mountaineers have to walk across campus to a shell (used for summer camp) that houses a floor, little lighting and not much heat. When the temperatures drop, the team will be even more ripe to develop a cold.

"They may throw a crumb at us and let us practice on our floor for a while, but not all year long," West Virginia coach Gale Catlett said. "The acoustics are horrible in the shell but it's amazing how flexible young people are. They're still practicing well."

The Mountaineers were informed of the decision by the school president deep in the summer, too late to get one facility for the whole season. Six games will be in Wheeling at a Civic Center that seats 6,000 (WVU Coliseum seats 14,000) and is located 75 miles away from campus. Nine games will be at the Charleston Civic Center, 160 miles away from Morgantown.

Visiting teams will still fly into Pittsburgh, and so too may West Virginia if the Mountaineers can get a private plane to get them to Charleston. The worst end of the Wheeling deal is the practice schedule. Both the Mountaineers and visiting teams won't be allowed to practice the day before a game or have gameday shootarounds. West Virginia was only allowed a noon-2 p.m. window to play games at Wheeling because of bingo (no joke) and a minor league hockey team.

Catlett figured out the Mountaineers will be on the road for 17 days in December, 18 in January and 17 in February.

"I wish someone would have told us earlier," Catlett said of his August notification. "The EPA still hasn't tested us and closed us down. I think some professor just called."

All-Big East candidate senior Marcus Goree won't play a game in his own gym, remaining virtually anonymous among his fellow students.

"This could have been taken care of last spring," Catlett said. "This was handled really poorly. We had an arena that one of the toughest places to play in the Big East, winning 80 percent of our games here. We had people intimidated and we've lost that."

West Virginia would have had a hard time keeping its homecourt streak intact. The Mountaineers are expected to finish no higher than 11th in the Big East.

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