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Sports | Basketball

BASKETBALL

Top teams fill Spartan basketball schedule

Evan Rondeau
June 18, 2003

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.

BASKETBALL

Spartans hope for success in upcoming season

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.

BASKETBALL

'U' hopes to make team

Dawn Klemish
June 4, 2003

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.

BASKETBALL

Lorbek picks NBA, leaves team early

Dawn Klemish  and  Antonio Planas
May 12, 2003

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.

BASKETBALL

U-M sanctioned by NCAA

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.

BASKETBALL

Izzo slim on coaches following departures

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.

BASKETBALL

Izzo to lose another assistant

Kris Karol
April 16, 2003

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.

BASKETBALL

Gregory takes Dayton head-coaching job

Chris Mackinder
April 10, 2003

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.

BASKETBALL

Izzo headed to Bourbon Street for television gig

Patrick Walters
April 2, 2003

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.

BASKETBALL

Past standards still haunt 'U'

Patrick Walters
April 1, 2003

San Antonio - The motivation for the MSU men's basketball team this postseason was to make a name for itself instead of chasing the glory of seasons' past. Mission accomplished? "It was a good run, not many people gave us a chance to get this far," sophomore forward/guard Alan Anderson said.

BASKETBALL

Spartans rely on defense to win in Sweet 16

Chris Mackinder
March 29, 2003

San Antonio - Defense. It's what the recent MSU legacy has been based on and it's what propelled the Spartans into the Elite 8 with a 60-58 slugfest victory over Maryland Friday night.The Spartans' stone cold defense suffocated the sixth-seeded Terrapins all night.

BASKETBALL

Brown scores 23 points in high school all-star game

While most people were likely observing high school basketball phenom LeBron James at the McDonald's All American High School Basketball Game on Wednesday in Cleveland, some others were staring fixedly at two MSU recruits. Guards Brandon Cotton and Shannon Brown showed off their skills at the contest. Troy Jackson, Brown's coach at Proviso East High in Illinois, said Brown was impressive. "Shannon played real well, like I expected him to," Jackson said.

BASKETBALL

Program has a chance to join nation's elite

In the second half of No. 7 seed MSU's 68-46 win over No. 2 seed Florida, sophomore forward/guard Alan Anderson dropped a pretty dime to freshman forward Erazem Lorbek for an easy deuce. As associate head coach Brian Gregory strolled by head coach Tom Izzo to call plays he asked, "Where did that come from?" Gregory was referring to Anderson's true point guard-type pass, however, he could have been talking about the entire team's performance.