The MSU men's basketball team's quest for its first conference road win continues Saturday when it ventures to Indiana to take on the struggling Hoosiers. The Spartans have failed in four previous tasks to bring home a conference road win.
Adam Ballinger dug himself a mountain-sized crevasse to climb out of.But in wins against then-No.
In the thick of the Big Ten season, the MSU men's basketball team finds itself living an anomaly - downtime during conference play. The Spartans (12-8 overall, 4-4 Big Ten) knocked off two ranked opponents (now-unranked Indiana and No.
For the second time in as many games, the MSU men's basketball team had to rely on a 3-pointer to seal a crucial conference victory.This time, the shot was a last-second heave from sophomore forward Alan Anderson to close the first half.
The Spartans and Fighting Illini had a war that included everything except swords and shining armor Sunday afternoon. And after losing the first-half battle and trailing 40-34, the MSU men's basketball team used a late surge and a controversial shot by sophomore forward Alan Anderson as a spark plug for the second half. The result: a heart-pounding and exhilarating 68-65 Spartan win in front of a packed Breslin Center.
The MSU men's basketball team hasn't won back-to-back games since December, a span of nine games, and the road to two straight victories won't be easy. After knocking off No.
They were the shots heard 'round East Lansing. Two game-clinching three-pointers from two different guys with two completely different agendas.
Tuesday marked the third time this season the MSU men's basketball team had a one-day turnaround between games. To say the least, that's something MSU head coach Tom Izzo is irate about. "You got to love to the one-day turnaround, especially when you lose to your rivals," Izzo said sarcastically prior to the Indiana game.
For the second time in as many games, the MSU basketball team locked in to the opponents' leading scorer and shut him down.But unlike Sunday's loss to U-M, the Spartans' (11-8 overall, 3-4 Big Ten) defense on Indiana guard Bracey Wright proved to be crucial and, arguably, the difference in Tuesday night's 61-54 victory over the Hoosiers at Breslin Center.Against the Wolverines, MSU held U-M's leading scorer LaVell Blanchard to only two points.Wright, who had missed Indiana's last four games and hadn't seen any action since Jan.
He shook his fist jogging through the tunnel, encouraged chants of "Ball-in-ger! Ball-in-ger!" and then smiled ear to ear for the first time in months.
After another road loss - its fifth in as many games - the MSU men's basketball team is returning to the refuge of Breslin Center.The Spartans (10-8 overall, 2-4 Big Ten) host No.
There's a sports adage that says special players make special plays on special days. But to the embarrassment of the MSU men's basketball team Sunday, most of the special players donned maize and blue. The plays that determined Sunday's 60-58 loss to intrastate rival Michigan simply didn't turn in the Spartans' favor.
Ann Arbor - There hadn't been so much excitement for an MSU-Michigan basketball game in nearly five years. The Spartan men's basketball team had won the last eight meetings, but were on the ropes, entering the game with a 1-7 record outside the confines of Breslin Center. And the Wolverines were ready to take advantage.
To say the least, the MSU men's basketball team hasn't lived up to any of the preseason hype. In fact, they have turned Final Four aspirations into mediocrity.
With his team stuck in a whirlwind of losses and inconsistency, Aloysius Anagonye decided it was time to assert himself as a leader.The senior forward paced the Spartans, as MSU (10-7 overall, 2-3 Big Ten) massacred Penn State 70-36 Wednesday night.After recording his first double-double this season on Saturday with a 12-point, 11-rebound performance against Minnesota, Anagonye dropped in 11 points while adding five rebounds, two assists and a pair of steals in 24 minutes of work.
Following a disappointing three-game road swing, the MSU men's basketball team took out its frustrations on a team with no conference wins. The Spartans (10-7 overall, 2-3 Big Ten) soundly drubbed Penn State on Wednesday 70-36 at Breslin Center, halting their three-game conference losing streak and holding the Nittany Lions (5-10, 0-4) to their lowest point total since joining the Big Ten. The Spartans' win stemmed from a 19-3 MSU run to end the first half after an offensive stalemate early on.
Following three straight road losses, the MSU men's basketball team is limping back to Breslin Center with a do-or-die attitude for tonight's contest against Penn State at 6 p.m. The Spartans (9-7 overall, 1-3 Big Ten) are losers of five of their last six games and on the brink of starting the Big Ten season 1-4. Don't think it hasn't gotten to head coach Tom Izzo. Izzo again cited MSU's costly turnovers, spotty free-throw shooting and inconsistent field-goal percentage as thorns in the Spartans' side Monday.
Minneapolis - Alan Anderson's homecoming was miserable - again. Against Minnesota, the sophomore forward spent most of his second trip to Williams Arena on the bench because of early foul trouble.
On the court, in the classroom and in the locker room, MSU freshman forward Erazem Lorbek is making the adjustment from life and basketball in Europe to the spotlight of the Big Ten. The gangly 6-foot-10 native of Ljubljana, Slovenia, has worked himself into head coach Tom Izzo's rotation since coming to America in August, combining the finesse game he honed playing for Slovenian junior national teams with crashing Big Ten style. While Lorbek is soft-spoken because of the language barrier - sometimes he swears in what looks and sounds like equal parts of English and Slovenian after making the occasional mistake - he said that his adjustment to MSU basketball has been trial by fire. "It's a higher level," Lorbek said of the conference.