Who is this year’s Cinderella? Who is this year’s champ? Who’s going to have their pretty mug serenaded by Jennifer Hudson on “One Shining Moment” in April? Send it in, Jerome!
The Spartans are sending six wrestlers to the championships for the first time since 2003 as they finished seventh at the conference championships and saw four wrestlers secure automatic selections and two others receive at-large bids.
In almost every MSU loss this season, one opposing player has stepped up to take down the Spartans. On Friday, with the Spartans taking an overtime lead and grabbing momentum, Minnesota guard Devoe Joseph put the Golden Gophers on his back.
The No. 10 MSU hockey team couldn’t have drawn a worse opponent in the quarterfinals of the CCHA Tournament.
Too often this season, regardless of whether it’s a win or a loss, the MSU women’s basketball team has talked about losing focus. With the stakes high and a trip to the Big Ten Tournament championship game on the line, lost focus cost the Spartans dearly.
After such an impressive start, the No. 10 MSU hockey team’s season is likely over much earlier than many would have thought.
With about four minutes remaining in the MSU men’s basketball team’s Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal game Friday, head coach Tom Izzo walked to the end of the bench and spoke briefly with Chris Allen. Normally, that’s presubstitution standard procedure — offer a few words of instruction and send him in to relieve a teammate. You can bet that’s what both Izzo and the junior guard wished the meeting was about.
MSU junior guard Kalin Lucas was selected to the All-Big Ten first team and sophomore guard Draymond Green was a unanimous selection for the conference’s Sixth Man of the Year, the conference announced Monday night.
In all the excitement and success the MSU men’s basketball program has been subjected to in the past decade, one particular accolade has been missing: a Big Ten Tournament championship.
As the banner commemorating the MSU men’s basketball team’s secondstraight Big Ten title and sixth during head coach Tom Izzo’s Hall of Fame career ascended to the ceiling, the Spartan Brass proudly played MSU Shadows, the university’s alma mater. The only tune more appropriate would have been the rock ballad from Bachman-Turner Overdrive: Takin’ Care of Business.
In his final game at Breslin Center on Sunday, senior forward Raymar Morgan scored a season-high 22 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, kissed the ‘S’ at midcourt and watched a Big Ten Championship banner raise to the rafters in front of Spartan legends Mateen Cleaves and Charlie Bell as the MSU men’s basketball team throttled archrival Michigan, 64-48.
Indianapolis — In her team’s biggest game of the season, Aisha Jefferson delivered. Her teammates, though, were notably absent.
Indianapolis — Iowa, the only team to beat the MSU women’s basketball team during its run to end the regular season, did so again Saturday, knocking the Spartans out of the Big Ten Tournament with a 59-54 win at Conseco Fieldhouse.
With just one regular season game remaining, MSU men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo seems to have had it. Following his team’s two-point victory over conference bottomfeeder Penn State on Thursday, Izzo said he was going to change the way his team practices and subsequently could make dramatic changes to the lineup. “We’ve fought it all year and we’re going to fight it another game only we’re going to maybe fight it in a different way,” Izzo said.
Indianapolis — The MSU women’s basketball team found a way to win without Allyssa DeHaan, who left Friday’s Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal game with Michigan midway through the first half with back spasms.
The MSU women’s basketball team advanced to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals with a 61-50 win against Michigan on Friday afternoon at Conseco Fieldhouse.
The Spartans, the hottest team in the league, have shown the ability to beat anybody — from the top-tier teams to the squads in the basement — and that’s exactly what a team needs to be successful in the postseason.
Jon Crandell didn’t have the typical path of a walk-on. He was just a normal student during his freshman year, playing intramural basketball, until former MSU walk-on guard DeMarcus Ducre spotted Crandell and told him to look more into basketball.
Isaiah Dahlman is the most likeable player on the MSU men’s basketball team. But it’s not because he’s a lockdown defender or will have the ball in his hands in crunch time. Raymar Morgan is the most frustrating player on the MSU men’s basketball team. But it’s not because he’s cold, indignant or an incompetent basketball player. As the two seniors’ careers in Green and White come to an inevitable end, it’s certain both players — who will go down as some of the program’s most valuable, in their own right — had an indelible impact on the success of MSU basketball through the past four years and its great promise for years to come. “We’re so different,” Dahlman said.
As a season wears on, coaches naturally become concerned with fatigue as their players deal with the rigors of a long season. MSU women’s basketball head coach Suzy Merchant is no different.