He had returned for his senior year to capture the national championship stage and those white nets dangling beneath two baskets. With 23 seconds left in an 89-76 victory over Florida, Michigan State's Mateen Cleaves showed how hard it was to wait.

He ran in place, then hopped and turned east-west-north-south with a face-engulfing smile that beamed like a lighthouse to every corner of the cavernous RCA Dome.

Cleaves, the Final Four's most valuable player, had grimaced and screamed and, at one point, cried his way through a virtuoso performance on this stage on behalf of top-seeded Michigan State (32-7).

With just over 16 minutes remaining in the game, Cleaves went down with a sprained ankle, an injury that he overcame to lead the Spartans to their first national title since 1979. After he returned with 12 minutes to play, he led Michigan State on a 21-9 run that put the game away.

Afterward, he smiled sweetly and clipped down the nylon as his final bow as a Spartan. He had plenty of help from his Michigan State teammates -- a close-knit bunch who, a year ago in the hours after being beaten by Duke in the national semifinals, vowed to be right here.

His best friend from his hometown of Flint, Mich., Morris Peterson, had rained in 21 points from distances that were often barely inbounds. Another senior, the willowy A. J. Granger, snaked through the lane for 19 points in tip-ins and point-blank jumpers to go with 9 rebounds. But in the end, Michigan State's victory over a young Florida team was Cleaves-willed, Cleaves-orchestrated and as fine a one-man show as a college basketball player could perform.

''This guy has the heart of a lion; he has worked for this for four years,'' an emotional Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said. ''This is as storybook as it gets for Mateen. He has lived his dream. He gave up a lot of money. People should appreciate him for the great kid that he is.''

Cleaves had missed the first 13 games of the season with a stress fracture to his right foot, and tonight it was as if he poured those missed games, and all the tormenting hours he spent thinking about them, into an 18-point, 4-assist outing that a statistic sheet does not begin to register. ''This is what I came back for,'' he said, one of those nets draped around his neck. ''This was a total group effort this whole year.''

Cleaves blunted the Gator assaults at every turn so his veteran team -- three seniors, two juniors -- could beat the precocious one. When Florida (29-8) and its collection of helter-skelter freshmen and sophomores pressed early, he handed the ball to Peterson and raced down the court gathering the ball over his shoulder like a wide receiver for easy layups. He pulled up for 3-pointers. He turned Florida's pressure defense back on the Gators' young guards.

Better perhaps is that he forced a precocious coach, Florida's 34-year-old Billy Donovan, to wait his turn behind a beloved one, the guy who brought him to East Lansing: Izzo. And so finally a wacky, unpredictable tournament came to a true and just end: the best team in the nation was crowned.

Only once did it look as if that may not happen -- Florida burst out in the second half intent on cutting into Michigan State's 11-point lead. They pounded the ball into Udonis Haslem, who led the Gators with 27 points, and Brent Wright, who made a driving layup to cut the lead to 48-41. But Cleaves refused to let the young Gators kidnap the momentum.

He sliced through the Florida press for a layup to put the Spartans up, 50-41. With 16 minutes 18 seconds left, Cleaves was trying to stop Florida's surge again. He caught a pass on the fly at midcourt and was slapped on the wrist by Brett Nelson. The senior, however, continued to the basket and tangled with the Gators' Teddy Dupay. He was hammered to the floor. He crawled along the baseline, grabbed his lower leg and, after a several-minute delay, limped to the locker room.

Izzo got after Dupay -- Florida's sophomore guard -- in front of the Michigan State bench. Later, the coach said he probably embarrassed himself. Moments later in the locker room, however, Cleaves was in tears, fearful that a twisted right ankle would keep him from playing the rest of the game. On the Florida bench, meanwhile, there was hope.