The men’s basketball team will be kicking off its season this Saturday at 4 p.m. with the Green-White Game. The game will provide the last chance for fans to sign the “Elite Banner” before it’s raised to the Breslin Center rafters.
Last season, the MSU men’s basketball team lacked enough healthy bodies for intense practices. The Spartans had just eight scholarship athletes on the roster and various injuries - including redshirt junior forward Adam Wolfe’s season-ending injury - forcing walk-ons and others to play minutes they had not earned. Head coach Tom Izzo said practices were played “safe.” This fall, the first three days of practices have been more to Izzo’s liking.
A jam-packed Breslin Center helped both the men’s and women’s basketball teams usher in the start of the 2002-03 season Friday night.Master of ceremonies Terry “Boom Boom” Braverman got the Midnight Mania crowd riled up, followed by the Spartan Marching Band leading the crowd in the school fight song.San Francisco 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci sent a message to his buddy - men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo - via video screen.“Tonight is the first step to another championship run, Izzo,” he said.
The men’s and women’s basketball teams will be unveiled to the general public during Midnight Mania tonight at Breslin Center.
The media got its first look at the 2002-03 MSU men’s basketball team Tuesday afternoon and the Spartans have high expectations for the upcoming season.The Spartans, which are coming off a 19-11 season and a first-round loss in the NCAA Tournament, are looking to bring their game back to a higher level.“We took a look at last year and the last three years to see where we need to go and how we’re going to get back to elite status,” Spartan basketball head coach Tom Izzo.“Looking back at last year, we didn’t have any expectations, we just wanted to survive.
Former Spartan basketball star Mateen Cleaves will be signing autographs from 5-7 p.m. Friday at Eastwood Towne Center in Lansing Township. Cleaves, who is about to start his third NBA season, will meet and greet fans at the grand opening of the Sprint store, 2959 Preyde Blvd., in the new shopping center, located on Lake Lansing Road near U.S.
After one year on the West Coast, former Spartan star Mateen Cleaves is headed back to the Midwest in search of some playing time.Cleaves, a point guard, was traded from the Sacramento Kings to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday in exchange for second-year forward Jumaine Jones.
The MSU Board of Trustees will vote to approve a one-year contract extension for men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo at its meeting Friday.The extension would keep Izzo at the helm of the Spartan program until June 30, 2009.And although the board must vote to make the extension official, trustee David Porteous said the deal is as good as done.“He does a great job, and we’re fortunate at MSU to have Tom Izzo,” Porteous said.
After years of inconsistency between the NCAA and its football conferences, the NCAA record books will recognize players’ statistics in bowl games. Sean Straziscar, assistant director for statistics for the NCAA, said starting this year football’s record keeping methods will be the same as other sports. “Football was the only sport that we did not count postseason statistics up until now,” he said.
Walk-ons for the men’s basketball team usually help the team by competing hard against the scholarship athletes in practice.
MSU sophomore guard Chris Hill was named to the Wooden Award Preseason All-American Team. As one of the 50 selections, Hill is a candidate for the John R.
The best guard of the 2003-04 recruiting class has verbally committed to MSU. “I think I made a choice my parents like, I like and even my little brother liked,” said Shannon Brown, of Proviso East High in Maywood, Ill.
Once again MSU head coach Tom Izzo has ensured a nonconference schedule that will force the men’s basketball team to prove themselves. “I think we’ve done a good job of putting together a very difficult schedule,” Izzo said in a statement.
Sophomore guard Chris Hill was selected to play with the Big Ten Foreign Tour Team. Hill and 11 other Big Ten players will travel to Europe to compete in five games Aug.
Neither team walked away victorious the last time the MSU men’s basketball team and Virginia took the court.
After competing with 65 professional hopefuls at the Chicago predraft camp June 4-7, Marcus Taylor will soon cement his decision to leave MSU.The guard said he plans to return home Tuesday and sign with an agent before leaving to work out with the Chicago Bulls on Thursday.Hiring an agent would end any dreams that Spartan fans have for Taylor to don the green and white for MSU next season.While in Chicago, Taylor said he was focused on displaying the skills that allowed him to lead the Big Ten in scoring and assists.
You have to love the NBA Playoffs. Right off the bat, you get two weeks worth of five-game first-round matchups, full of 83-63 nail-biters.
With one scholarship to fill for next year’s team, the MSU men’s basketball team is looking abroad to snag their last recruit. Last week, staff from MSU made a trip to Europe to look at 6-foot-10 center Erazem Lorbek.
Earvin “Magic” Johnson changed the way professional basketball is played and he is now almost guaranteed a place in basketball’s hallowed walls. Johnson, who played 13 years with the Los Angeles Lakers, was one of 14 players, coaches and teams nominated Wednesday for induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. During his two-year career at MSU, Johnson put up record numbers.
Just a week after one piece of the Spartan men’s basketball coaching staff decided to stay put, another assistant soon might be leaving the MSU sidelines.MSU assistant coach Mike Garland will interview for the head coaching job at Wisconsin-Green Bay today, Wisconsin-Green Bay Sports Information Director Brian Nicol said.Garland, a teammate of MSU head coach Tom Izzo at Northern Michigan, has spent six seasons as an assistant on the Spartan bench.