For the last three weeks, nothing about the MSU men’s basketball team jumped out at you and said, “Now that is Spartan basketball.” Quite the opposite, fans were leaving games or turning off the TV wondering what happened to a program that has developed a reputation for running teams to death while also physically beating the living daylights out of them just for good measure.
A triple-double from junior forward Draymond Green led the MSU men’s basketball team to a 75-57 defeat of Penn State on Thursday night at Breslin Center.
After holding No. 23 Penn State without a basket for nearly 8 minutes, the No. 11 MSU women’s basketball team cruised to a victory and in the process, took sole control of first place in the Big Ten. The Spartans(21-3 overall, 9-2 Big Ten) defeated the Lady Lions(20-6, 9-3), 60-49, not allowing Penn State to even approach the 80-point mark they have been averaging this season and proving again great defense trumps great offense. With 6:20 remaining in the first half, the score was 19-18 with MSU holding the one-point advantage.
Led by junior forward Draymond Green’s triple-double, the MSU men’s basketball came home to Breslin Center on Thursday night and dismantled Penn State, 75-57.
Draymond Green — a junior forward for the MSU men’s basketball team — has had a tough time going to class recently. Unlike most college students, Green’s disdain for class has nothing to do with walking through the cold or being forced to wake up earlier than desired.
The MSU field hockey team inked six players to National Letters of Intent on Monday, as it hopes to build off its fourth-straight NCAA Tournament appearance this season. The Spartans lost seven seniors off this season’s roster, and hope to receive some help from the talented incoming class. Newly appointed head coach Helen Knull, who was named to the position when former head coach Rolf van de Kerkhof was named head coach at Delaware on Dec.
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.