At the beginning of the season, no one would have pegged tonight’s matchup between the No. 11 MSU women’s basketball team and No. 23 Penn State to be a battle for first place in the Big Ten.
Little brother is growing up fast. A poll released Monday showed the percent of Michigan residents that support MSU is almost the same as the percent that support the University of Michigan. The poll was commissioned by Lansing-based Resch Strategies and conducted by pollsters at Marketing Research Group, said Matt Resch, president of Resch Strategies. Resch, an Indiana native, said he grew up with the Indiana University and Purdue University basketball rivalry, and he was curious how the numbers panned out for this rivalry. “I was surprised,” he said.
The MSU men’s basketball team was supposed to be the No. 2 team in the country and favorites to cut down the nets in April.
In a season unlike any other, the MSU gymnastics team has seen a variety of challenges and still is struggling to overcome the adversity with which it’s faced. Among the latest struggles, the most recent is the Spartans’ 194.625-191.825 loss to Western Michigan on Sunday.
Call it Saturday Night Fever, but the MSU hockey team lately has struggled to follow up good Friday night performances with the same effort on Saturday nights.
The MSU and Central Michigan baseball teams will renew their in-state rivalry this spring by playing the first ever college baseball game at Detroit’s Comerica Park on April 20, CMU said in a press release Monday. A press conference officially announcing the game with representatives from both schools will be held at 10:30 a.m.
Tom Izzo’s version of the MSU men’s basketball program was built on defense. After back-to-back 20-point losses and five losses in six games, the defense is the biggest culprit.
The No. 11 MSU women’s basketball team is excelling in almost all aspects of the game this season. It hold the highest national ranking in the Big Ten, id second place in the conference standings and among the top five in the league in most of the statistical categories.
The titles “leading scorer” and “record breaker” usually aren’t connected to senior guard Brittney Thomas.
Maybe it was the racket. After losing the first set, 6-0, MSU sophomore Denis Bogatov was left searching for answers. He decided to start the second set with a new racket, hoping a change would help get him back on track. And the racket seemed to help as Bogatov rolled to an impressive come-from-behind victory over Wake Forest’s Jonathan Wolff (0-6, 6-4, 6-3). “I just told myself that I couldn’t continue playing as horribly as I did in the first set,” Bogatov said.
Opening the match against No. 3 Penn State, junior 184-pounder Ian Hinton’s 13-1 major decision loss to Penn State’s No. 14 Quentin Wright foreshadowed the course of the match for MSU on Friday at Jenison Field House.
It was same story, different venue for the MSU men’s basketball team. Following a 20-point loss at Iowa on Wednesday, the Spartans lost, 82-56, at Wisconsin on Sunday. For the sixth-straight game, a Spartan opponent made at least 49 percent of its shots.
The MSU hockey team continued to match its opponents’ intensity level but didn’t register its first sweep of the season in a weekend split with Ohio State. On Friday freshman goalie Will Yanakeff led the Spartans with 32 saves in his second shutout in his past four starts, and junior defenseman Tim Buttery scored his first goal of the season, while sophomore forward Derek Grant tallied an empty netter to lift the Spartans to a 2-0 win.
The No. 11 MSU women’s basketball team faced off against Purdue in a battle of the Big Ten’s best defenses and came away with a 76-57 victory.
The MSU hockey team failed to earn its first series sweep of the season Saturday, as it fell, 4-2, at Ohio State.
Freshman goalie Will Yanakeff’s fifth consecutive win led the MSU hockey team to a 2-0 victory against Ohio State on Friday.
One day after the MSU’s 72-52 loss to Iowa — a loss head coach Tom Izzo called “embarrassing” — the Spartans had the day off from practice. Instead, with a game at Wisconsin looking on Sunday, they gathered at the Alfred Berkowitz Basketball Complex for three hours of meetings. “We just met and talked about what we wanted to do,” junior forward Delvon Roe said.
Recently-dismissed junior guard Korie Lucious is in Ames, Iowa visiting Iowa State.
The scene was set for a night to remember for Badger fans, defeating one of the best teams in the country, remaining in a tie for first place in the Big Ten and allowing head coach Lisa Stone to celebrate her 500th career victory.
About two and a half months ago, the MSU men’s basketball team had a team evaluation meeting. Players were told areas they needed to work on. Sophomore center Derrick Nix decided to write down the needed improvements and hang them above his locker so he remembered.