Wins at home are key to winning any sports championship and, Breslin Center has been a place that has been very good to the Spartans this year.
The MSU women's basketball team (18-3 overall, 7-2 Big Ten) enters tonight's game ranked No. 10 in The Associated Press poll and will look to stay undefeated at home when Northwestern (5-17, 2-7) comes to East Lansing looking to knock off another top team in the Big Ten.
"After seeing what Northwestern did to Penn State, we know we are going to have to come out with our best game once again," MSU head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "We will be prepared to face a team that didn't play like their record against Penn State."
Northwestern took it to Penn State, a team that had not lost any Big Ten games this year, including beating the Spartans in the process. Although Penn State did not have one of its two star guards, the Wildcats still looked impressive against the Lady Lions.
The Penn State loss opened up the Big Ten race again.
The Spartans now have a chance once again to get a Big Ten Championship that was thought to be lost after they were beaten by the Lady Lions earlier this season.
"That game statistically changed the race and opened things up once again," McCallie said. "Either way though, there is a lot of the season left, and I am not a fan of speculating until the season is over."
With the Spartans' win on Sunday at Indiana, another school record fell by the wayside. The Spartans already have seen three players reach the 1,000-point plateau, and now the senior class of guard Kristin Haynie and center Kelli Roehrig are the winningest class in MSU women's basketball history with 76 career wins.
"This says more about Coach P. than it does about us," Roehrig said. "We were her second recruiting class, and it shows what she is doing with this program. This program is only going to get better and can only expect more great things."
The last time the Spartans and Wildcats met, which was last season, the Spartans won the game by 24 points and were led on offense by junior guard Lindsay Bowen, who had 14 points.
The Wildcats enter the game led on offense by center Sarah Kwasinski, who is averaging 12.7 points per game. Melissa Miller leads the team in rebounding with an average of 6.5 per game. The team comes into the game ranked 10th in the conference in scoring offense and scoring defense.
Haynie pulled down a career-high 14 rebounds against Indiana and added 10 points, all of this while playing on a slightly injured ankle. She is expected to play tonight.
