MSU head basketball coach Tom Izzo and the rest of Team USA faced its second loss at the 2003 Pan American Games on Tuesday, forcing the Americans to move to the bronze medal game. Team USA (2-2) lost to Brazil 92-80 in the last five minutes of the semifinal game.
MSU junior guard Chris Hill is set to go from MSU baller to representative of the United States. Hill was among 12 college players chosen nationwide for the USA Basketball Men's Pan American Games Team.
The USA World Junior Championship team had a rocky stretch during the weekend, falling to Australia, but rebounding to defeat Slovenia and Puerto Rico to close out the basketball tournament in fifth place. Team USA (7-1) defeated Puerto Rico on Saturday, 82-80.
Team USA still perfect after edging Lithuania The USA Junior World Championship Team is still dominating the 2003 FIBA Men's Junior World Championships. MSU sophomore center Paul Davis and sophomore guard Maurice Ager continued their undefeated exposure to international basketball on Tuesday with a slim 87-84 victory over Lithuania. Davis scored 13 in the evenly-matched game, his most weighty basket a score with just under seven minutes remaining to give Team USA (5-0) a 71-68 lead.
MSU sophomore center Paul Davis and sophomore guard Maurice Ager are having a hand in leading the USA World Junior Championship Team to a 3-0 record in first round play at the 2003 FIBA Men's Junior World Championships in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Fans of MSU or Kentucky basketball without tickets to the schools' Dec. 13 matchup are officially hard-pressed to find a ticket because "The BasketBowl" is sold out.After season-ticket holders and university donors from both schools claimed the first 50,672 seats, the remaining 19,028 tickets allotted to the general public on Tuesday sold out in a span of four days, according to the Ford Field Ticket Office.
MSU's attempt to set a world record in basketball attendance is shaping up into a reality as ticket sales for "The BasketBowl" have now topped 50,000. On Saturday, MSU ticket manager Chris Besanceney reported that 50,172 tickets have been sold for the Kentucky-MSU basketball game at Ford Field in Detroit on Dec.
Erazem Lorbek is going pro - again. Lorbek surprised the Spartan nation following MSU's Elite Eight appearance with what some believe a premature announcement that he would forgo his three remaining years of eligibility and enter his name in the NBA's draft. But the 6-foot-10 Slovenian will formally announce today his decision to withdraw his interest in the NBA's June 26 draft so he can pursue playing professional basketball in Europe, said his father, Radovan Lorbek, on Wednesday. Whether Lorbek will commit to the NBA in a year remains unknown. "He will play next year in Europe and he will decide from the season," Radovan Lorbek said.
For the first time in NCAA history, the Spartan basketball team is set to play five of the 11 winningest programs of all-time in one of the hardest nonconference schedules in school history.The Spartans will face Duke at Breslin Center, travel to Kansas, UCLA and Syracuse and play Oklahoma and Kentucky at Detroit area neutral sites - the Palace of Auburn Hills and Ford Field, respectively.Head coach Tom Izzo said in a statement this year's schedule is shaping up to be one of the toughest the Spartans have seen and one of the hardest in the nation.John Lewandowski, assistant athletic director at MSU, says the schedule against those five schools is arguably the toughest he's seen."This schedule will go down as one of the toughest in the history of college basketball, not just MSU," Lewandowski said.
Last March, three wins in seven days at the 2003 NCAA Tournament laid a season of skepticism surrounding the MSU men's basketball team to rest - and woke up the groggy sleeping giant of MSU basketball fandom.But even though the Spartans' run to the Elite Eight in the 2003 NCAA Tournament was an improbable - albeit unexpected - step back to championship-caliber expectations, players and coaches are looking toward the national crown this season regardless.Last season, all talk was about "bridging the gap" between the Spartans of 2003 and the 2000 national championship team that cut down the nets at the Final Four.
After a weekend of tryouts, three MSU athletes have taken another step toward taking the summer off from Spartan basketball and representing the United States against the rest of the world.Junior guard Chris Hill, sophomore forward Paul Davis and sophomore guard Maurice Ager all made the cut as finalists under consideration for placement on two different USA Basketball teams."It just shows that we're more than just basketball, we can go out and represent our country," Davis said.
Hoop dreams for three members of the MSU men's basketball team are closer to coming true following a weekend tryout at the U.S.
The MSU men's basketball team lost its fourth underclassman in three years Friday when freshman forward Erazem Lorbek announced he would forego his remaining collegiate eligibility and enter the NBA Draft. A meeting with his father in Hamburg, Germany, last weekend resulted in Lorbek signing with the SFX Sports Group, rendering him ineligible to return to the Spartan squad. "When I came home, my dad brought up the idea," Lorbek said in a statement.
Michigan's basketball team was restricted from the next postseason last Thursday by the NCAA for violations involving former booster Ed Martin paying Wolverine basketball players during the 1990s.Although the university placed a self-imposed ban on the men's basketball team from appearing in the NCAA Tournament last season, the NCAA infractions committee deemed the penalty "meaningful," but not enough.
Men's basketball coach Tom Izzo has a new benchmate. Former University of North Carolina assistant coach Doug Wojcik said on Tuesday he'll fill one of the team's two assistant coaching vacancies.
With the defections of assistant coach Mike Garland (Cleveland State) and associate head coach Brian Gregory (Dayton) for head-coaching jobs, MSU head coach Tom Izzo is in search of two replacements.Izzo said his challenge will be to replace two monumental parts of his staff and two close friends."Those two guys are 66 percent of my staff," he said.
MSU assistant coach Mike Garland is en route to Cleveland State to become the Vikings' new men's basketball head coach. The former assistant coach told senior Brian Westrick the news, as the two crossed paths in the Union on Tuesday morning. Garland's departure means MSU will have two vacancies to fill on its coaching staff next season.
After much speculation, MSU basketball associate head coach Brian Gregory accepted the head-coaching position at Dayton on Wednesday afternoon."I'm honored and excited to be named the head basketball coach at the University of Dayton," Gregory said at a press conference.
With closure on the Spartan basketball season, much optimism is already surrounding the 2003-04 campaign. The Spartans stumbled out of the gate, and by early January, the Spartans were the "biggest disappointment" of the season.
You can take the coach out of the Final Four, but you won't be able to take the Final Four out of the coach. MSU Sports Information Assistant Director Matt Larson confirmed Tuesday MSU head coach Tom Izzo will join anchors Greg Gumbel and Clark Kellogg in CBS studios for analysis of this weekend's national semifinal and championship games.