Senior center Goran Suton’s dominant defensive performance against Southern Cal didn’t strike fear into the heart of Kansas’ center Cole Aldrich. In fact, the Jayhawks star center said he’s looking forward to his individual matchup with Suton.
In Tuesday’s home opener, the MSU softball team waited until the bottom of the seventh inning to win the game on a walk-off home run by sophomore shortstop Lindsey Hansen.
The State News dubbed the MSU women’s basketball team’s win over Duke on Tuesday as head coach Suzy Merchant’s “signature win.”
Head coach Jake Boss Jr. thought his MSU baseball team had the chance to build some momentum when the Spartans came north after its spring trip down south. So far, so good.
It is March Madness, but Tuesday night at Breslin Center was much more than an upset win for the MSU women’s basketball team.
They said it would take everything they had. On Monday, Aisha Jefferson said no team shows up in March Madness with more hustle than an opponent — it would come down to mental focus.
It had to be perfect. To beat No. 1-seed Duke, the No. 9-seed MSU women’s basketball team had to limit turnovers, storm the glass and play staunch defense.
This late in March, no team is fully reliant on one or two players. Yet while Kansas has a lot of young, skilled players on its roster, there is no question that guard Sherron Collins (18.9 points per game) and center Cole Aldrich (14.8 ppg) make the team work.
It didn’t take much for MSU men’s basketball head coach Tom Izzo to put Kansas’ midseason improvement into perspective for his team. In fact, all it took were two words: North Carolina.
Don’t expect an answer anytime soon to the biggest unanswered question for the MSU football team this season. Sophomores Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol are duking it out for the vacant starting quarterback job following the graduation of Brian Hoyer in May.
The MSU women’s basketball team (21-10) will take on Duke (27-5) at 7:16 p.m. tonight at Breslin Center in a battle between a No. 9 and No. 1 seed.
Facing a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament already is difficult enough, but the MSU women’s basketball team is facing another obstacle — the team it will play, Duke, has a coaching staff that knows the ins and outs of most of the roster.
For once, Travis Walton was the offensive star on the MSU men’s basketball team. That meant it was someone else’s turn to be the unheralded defensive star.
Before his team suited up to take on Southern Cal, Marquise Gray called teammate Durrell Summers over for a little chat. “I told him we can kind of lean on each other,” said Gray, a senior forward. “Everybody has their struggles, so I just told him to go over there and play.”
Sherron Collins scored a game-high 25 points and Cole Aldrich collected a triple-double, leading Kansas to a 60-43 victory over Dayton in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. With the win, No. 3 seed Kansas advances to the Sweet 16, where the defending national champs will play MSU in Indianapolis.
When it comes to game-tying runs, thoughts of home runs or deep line drives resonate in the mind. But in Sunday’s 7-5 victory for the MSU baseball team, the game-tying run in the bottom of the eighth inning traveled fewer than five feet from the batter’s box.
Junior center Allyssa DeHaan has been often criticized for her lack of toughness and inability to come through in big-game situations — and sometimes rightfully so. But in the MSU women’s basketball team’s first round NCAA Tournament win on Sunday, Middle Tennessee State coach Rick Insell said that was not the case.
Although the home team was dressed in an unfamiliar green jersey, the Breslin Center crowd knew exactly who to cheer for Sunday in the MSU women’s basketball team’s 60-59 win over Middle Tennessee State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
With less than two minutes remaining in the game, Middle Tennessee State’s Alysha Clark drove to the basket for what could have been one more bucket to add to a stunning point total. Instead, she missed a layup and knocked junior forward Aisha Jefferson to the ground in pursuit of the rebound. The whistle sounded, resulting in Clark’s fifth foul and a pivotal moment in MSU’s 60-59 NCAA Tournament victory against the Blue Raiders on Sunday at Breslin Center.
Call it a senior moment. With the score tied in a 57-57 game with Middle Tennessee State, guard Mia Johnson, the MSU women’s basketball team’s lone senior, got the ball on the wing and fired a three-point shot over an outstretched Blue Raiders defender. Johnson, who missed a three on the previous possession, watched the shot fall effortlessly through the basket, giving the Spartans a 60-57 lead with 1:10 remaining in a game they eventually would go on to win 60-59.