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Sports | Football 1000

ICE HOCKEY

Midwest Region highlighted by goalies

Athletes probably get used to being overlooked when they're 5-foot-6. But not sophomore goaltender Jeff Lerg. Lerg, who was named the team's Most Valuable Player on Monday, may be forgotten among Hobey Baker candidates such as Notre Dame goaltender David Brown and Boston goaltender John Curry.

BASKETBALL

Spartans could be 13 deep next season, Joseph may transfer

The locker room is empty. The equipment is packed away. The players are on hiatus for two weeks — "13 1/2 more days than last year," head coach Tom Izzo said. The season is over for the MSU men's basketball team — a grueling campaign that saw the Spartans go from preseason doormat to a few minutes away from a Sweet 16 berth. "The biggest problem now is where do we go?" Izzo said Wednesday at his year-end press conference.

ICE HOCKEY

Vukovic becoming total package

What started out as a joke has now taken on a sort of truth for junior defenseman Daniel Vukovic. When Vukovic scored his first goal of the season to lift MSU in a come-from-behind victory over Miami (Ohio) on Jan.

SPORTS

Season ends sadly, but team's future bright

State News women's basketball reporter Matt Bishop discusses the women's basketball team's loss to Rutgers in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, how this season will be remembered and the situation surrounding head coach Joanne P.

SPORTS

Senior gymnast breaks MSU record

After a record-breaking performance Sunday, Spartans gymnast Kristen Coleman was named Big Ten gymnast of the week on Wednesday. The senior from Cornwall, Ontario, Canada broke her own all-around performance record against Western Michigan with a 39.625 tally, a full point higher than her previously set school record. Coleman set a personal high on floor exercise Sunday with a 9.950, her highest individual apparatus score of the night.

BASKETBALL

Tourney time a holiday for hoops reporter

State News basketball reporter Tom Keller covered MSU's postseason run last week in Winston-Salem, N.C., and was reminded why this is his favorite — and most fattening — time of year. If you don't like the NCAA Tournament, I'm not sure we can be friends.

SPORTS

MSU feels home-court advantage

Breslin Center was half full for Sunday's game against Delaware. Butu when those fans are as loud as they were during the first-round tournament win, it doesn't necessarily matter how many people are in the seats. "It felt almost like it was a sellout," sophomore guard Mia Johnson said.

ICE HOCKEY

Comley wants tourney berth to relax Spartans

Finally, the pressure to get in is gone. MSU is in the NCAA Tournament, and one could only imagine the metaphorical sigh of relief the entire team released when it found out. After weeks of struggling, there is indeed a silver lining. There's a postseason. But still, the team has a longing to play as it did in its run that spanned more than two months.

SPORTS

Monday musings

After six straight NCAA Tournament-less seasons, Michigan fired men's basketball coach Tommy Amaker on Saturday.

SPORTS

Nick Simmons fails to win national title, finishes 3rd at championships

Auburn Hills — MSU wrestler Nick Simmons emerged victorious in his final match as a Spartan at the NCAA Wrestling Championships on Saturday, but it wasn't the match he wanted to end his collegiate career. Simmons took third place in the 133-pound weight class at the national finals after defeating Tennessee-Chattanooga's fifth-seeded Matt Keller in wrestleback finals Saturday morning. But the win came one night after he was upset in the championship semifinals, 4-3, by Oklahoma State's fourth-seeded Coleman Scott, ending his last effort at winning his first national title. In the match's first period, Scott scored a two-point takedown and a two-point near-fall to jump out to a 4-0 lead.