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.
With the postseason here, MSU head coach Suzy Merchant is scaling back practices to keep her team fresh for a run in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.
After an unsettling home loss to Ohio State and a long week of practice, the MSU men’s basketball team realized they needed to sleep it off. At Breslin Center.
MSU played a tough, hard-nosed game to beat the Boilermakers on Sunday. For the first time maybe this entire season, the Spartans exhibited coinciding flashes of toughness, grit, heart and, well, good ol’ fashioned MSU basketball.
MSU head coach Suzy Merchant called her four seniors — center Lauren Aitch, center Allyssa DeHaan, forward Aisha Jefferson and guard Mandy Piechowski — in for a meeting Friday, offering them the chance to start together for their final game at Breslin Center on Sunday.
The MSU women’s basketball team’s 70-50 win against Minnesota on Sunday at Breslin Center served three purposes: It sent the team’s four seniors out as winners, clinched the No. 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament and also gave the team 10 wins in its last 11 games, the second best regular season finish in program history, trailing only the 2004-05 national runner-up team that won 13 of its last 14.
The No. 14 MSU men’s basketball team overcame a staggering turnover total in a physical game to steal a 53-44 win from No. 3 Purdue on its home floor Sunday. The win keeps the Spartans’ Big Ten regular season championship hopes alive.
Led by junior forward Kalisha Keane, the MSU women’s basketball team notched its 20th win of the season with a 79-64 victory over Purdue on Thursday at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind. The Spartans now can clinch the No. 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament with a win Sunday on Senior Day or a Wisconsin loss.
Once again, a top-five Big Ten team has lost perhaps its best player leading up to a matchup with the top spot in the conference on the line. This time, it’s not MSU junior guard Kalin Lucas. It’s Purdue forward Robbie Hummel, who tore his right anterior cruciate ligament in the first half against Minnesota on Wednesday night and will miss the remainder of the season.
Two years ago, I watched from my seat on Mackey Arena’s press row one February evening as a green blur jetted the length of the floor, lofted an orange orb at one end, bouncing it off the glass and through the net in a repetitive fashion.
The No. 3 Boilermakers (24-3 overall, 12-3 Big Ten) came to East Lansing on Feb. 9 to hand the Spartans (21-7, 11-4) their first home loss of the season, part of three consecutive MSU losses that dropped it from standing alone in first place in the Big Ten. Now the Spartans will head to West Lafayette, Ind., for a game that could be decisive for both teams.
Every time sophomore forward Delvon Roe goes up for a rebound, those who know him must hold their collective breath.
Emotions and memories will flood the minds of those four — Lauren Aitch, Allyssa DeHaan, Aisha Jefferson and Mandy Piechowski — when they step on the Breslin Center court for the last time Sunday against Minnesota.
The MSU women’s basketball team’s season was on the brink of collapse courtesy of a three-game losing streak in mid-January. The Spartans were at a crossroads — 11-7 overall and 2-5 in the Big Ten. Everybody knew something needed to be done.
The MSU women’s basketball team is hitting its stride and looks primed to make a run in both the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.
No more than a few hours after Kalin Lucas quickly and quietly ducked out of the MSU men’s basketball team’s locker room before talking to media Sunday, he called his head coach.
If ever there was a time for Tom Izzo’s patented big-picture outlook, it’s now. In a season of promise and high expectations recently maligned with disappointment, the MSU men’s basketball team was, for the second time in a row, sitting in its home locker room both mystified and disheartened Sunday.