Indianapolis – The same group of upperclassmen, captains and leaders who put the MSU men’s basketball team on their back Friday against Minnesota were the same ones that clanked late free throws and ran out of gas down the stretch in the Spartans’ 72-67 loss.
Indianapolis — Two pairs of missed free throws in overtime and clutch shooting from Minnesota hurt the MSU men’s basketball team Friday night as the Spartans lost, 72-67, to the Golden Gophers at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Spartans’ quarterfinal loss in the Big Ten Tournament means they will be off until the start of the NCAA Tournament next week.
Indianapolis — With a dominating 76-55 win Thursday against No. 11 seed Penn State in the first round of the men’s Big Ten Tournament at Conseco Fieldhouse, the No. 6 seed Minnesota Golden Gophers advance to face MSU, which defeated Minnesota twice already this year and had a first-round bye. Minnesota and MSU are scheduled to tip-off at 9 p.m. Friday.
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 — 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.
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 MSU men’s basketball team beat Penn State 67-65 Thursday. This win put the Spartans a step closer to consecutive Big Ten titles and kept them from their first home three-game losing streak since 1997.
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.
The month every college basketball fan salivates over has arrived, and the MSU women’s basketball team will kick off what is sure to be a wild month in this weekend’s Big Ten Tournament at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
How afraid is the No. 11 MSU men’s basketball team of Penn State guard Talor Battle? Frightened enough to place a taped 3-point line four-to-five feet beyond the normal 3-point line.
It appears the Spartans are fully healthy and might have found the chemistry and spark needed after Sunday’s win at then-No. 3 Purdue. To continue their roll, they’ll have to stop the Nittany Lions, who boast one of the Big Ten’s top scorers and have won three of their last four.
Cetera Washington lives by the mantra that while defense wins games, rebounding wins championships. So it should be no surprise the junior forward recently has stepped on the accelerator in both areas, becoming a key force during MSU’s run of 10 wins in its past 11 games.
Four members of the MSU women’s basketball team were honored by the Big Ten on Monday, led by senior center Allyssa DeHaan as the league’s Defensive Player of the Year and junior forward Kalisha Keane as the conference’s Sixth Player of the Year.