By Larry Lage
The Associated Press

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Even Michigan State's hard-to-please coach is impressed with the Spartans' strong start in the NCAA tournament.

"Part of me still can't believe what we just did," Tom Izzo said Monday.

The seventh-seeded Spartans reached the South Regional semifinals by defeating No. 10 Colorado by 15 points and then No. 2 Florida by 22 Sunday in Tampa, Fla. Michigan State will play defending national champion Maryland, seeded sixth, on Friday in San Antonio.

The Spartans won the 2000 national championship, and they're in the round of 16 for the fifth time in six years. But Izzo said his teams had never put together consecutive performances as strong as the ones he saw last week.

"Colorado was better than I thought, and we played Florida in its back yard, and we handled both of them," he said.

The Spartans were No. 9 in The Associated Press preseason poll and were favored to win their fifth Big Ten title in six years. But a series of injuries set them back, even as they played one of the toughest schedules in the country, without an experienced point guard.

Michigan State finished the regular season 18-11 and was knocked out of the Big Ten tournament by Ohio State in the semifinals. Leading up to the NCAA tournament, the Spartans didn't look like a team that would advance through the first two rounds so easily.

"People have asked, or are wondering, 'What's so different about our team now?"' Izzo said. "Well, I've been trying to tell people all year that our injuries have really hurt our chemistry and the development of our young players. It sounds like an excuse, so people don't want to hear it and I get tired of talking about it, but that's been our reality."

Michigan State beat the Buffaloes and Gators with the big, athletic, deep team it was supposed to have all season.

"Yeah, this is more like the team we thought we could have on paper," Izzo said. "What people don't realize is, we're still so young. We went over 10 minutes against Florida with three freshmen and two sophomores on the floor."

Those freshmen were Maurice Ager, Erazem Lorbek and Paul Davis - who combined for 36 points against Florida - and a combination of sophomores Chris Hill, Alan Anderson and Kelvin Torbert.

Ager, Lorbek and Davis have shown flashes of promise this season, but they hadn't played well at the same time. Hill and Anderson struggled for much of the season adjusting to the point guard position, but their problems disappeared last weekend.

The Spartans (21-12) know they must continue to mask their deficiencies against the Maryland (21-9) at The Alamodome. And they know that few are picking them to make it all the way through the weekend.

"I think we almost need to get our guys a little cocky to believe that we can do it," Izzo said. "But first we have to prove we can handle success, because we're getting patted on the back on campus. That's my job - to make sure we handle that."