With three games left in the regular season, as well as the Big Ten tournament and NCAA Tournament on the horizon, the final chapter has yet to be written on this year’s MSU women’s basketball team.
There were two records on Suzy Merchant’s mind heading into Wednesday’s home matchup with Northwestern – one evoked nerves while the other evoked pride. The first, the Wildcats’ losing record on the season, made the sixth-year MSU women’s basketball coach nervous because she knew the number wasn’t indicative of how good Northwestern was. The second was the fruit of MSU’s 54-45 victory Wednesday night, which marked the Spartans’ 10th-straight season of 20 wins or more. “Those are always important numbers and you know how important it is to get there,” Merchant said.
It might have been more challenging than they were expecting, but the Spartans pulled out a much-needed 54-45 win against Northwestern at home Wednesday night.
East Lansing’s first top-five matchup didn’t go the way Spartan fans had hoped, and now MSU looks to pick up the pieces.
It was the first time two top-five teams had ever played in East Lansing, and by the time it was over Tuesday night’s tilt between the Spartans and Hoosiers had become a classic.
For the second week in a row, the MSU women’s basketball team will take the Breslin Center floor one day following a highly-anticipated men’s matchup with a winning streak against a conference foe on the line.
The stakes were already high, a late season battle for first place in the Big Ten, but there was extra juice in Breslin Center on Tuesday night.
As the scattered remains of Jimmy John’s wrappers and Little Caesar’s Pizza boxes tumbled in the bone-chilling wind across the snow-covered lawn, hundreds of students wrapped around Breslin Center in excitement for the highly-anticipated No.
Close, but no cigar. Three weeks ago, this was the overarching message after the then-No. 13 MSU men’s basketball team left Assembly Hall with a 75-70 loss to then-No.
For the first time in history, the MSU men’s basketball team will host a top-five matchup, as the No. 4 Spartans (22-4 overall, 11-2 Big Ten) square off against No. 1 Indiana (23-3, 11-2) in front of a national television audience (7 p.m., ESPN).
With a difficult stretch of games during the next week, the No. 8 MSU men’s basketball team saw an opportunity this weekend to hone some of its shortcomings against Nebraska.
The emotions were difficult to hide on both sides. For the visitors wearing green it was disappointment.
Coming off one of the biggest victories of the season against No. 4 Michigan, the talk of practice this week for the No.
_Ann Arbor, Mich. – _Now that was how a rivalry game should be. Despite 21 points in a heroic effort from guard Jasmine Thomas in the senior’s final regular season match up with archrival Michigan, it wasn’t enough to end her Spartan career undefeated against the Wolverines. Michigan (19-6 overall, 8-4 Big Ten) broke its 12-game losing streak to MSU on Sunday afternoon with a dramatic 70-69 win in front of a sellout crowd at Crisler Center.
Michigan standout sharpshooter Kate Thompson hit her first four shots, including three 3-pointers to help the Wolverines jump out to an early seven-point lead about seven minutes in. Thompson cooled off though and the energy of the opening tip died down at Crisler Center to allow MSU to run off 11 straight points and take a 22-19 lead. Behind senior guard Jasmine Thomas’ team-high 11 points, MSU leads U-M 32-28 at the intermission.
The Breslin Center crew had yet to finish using their leaf blowers to clear away popcorn, wrappers and cups left behind from the Spartan women’s basketball team’s most lopsided conference victory.
It was a night in which seemingly everything went right for the Spartans at Breslin Center. That was evident when MSU women’s basketball coach Suzy Merchant summoned Mariah Harris from the bench to check into her first game action since Dec. 16, 2012.
On Tuesday, The State News published five keys for the Spartans to win the first ever top-10 clash with the rival Wolverines. The No. 8 MSU men’s basketball team (21-4 overall, 10-2 Big Ten) dominated No. 4 Michigan (21-4, 8-4) from start to finish, winning 75-52 in front of a frenzied crowd of 14,797 in attendance. Here’s how MSU fared when it came to the pregame keys.
The last time Mateen Cleaves took the floor against Michigan, he left a lasting impression not soon forgotten.