The MSU women’s basketball team is still looking for one thing - consistency.They couldn’t find it Sunday when Illinois, (9-8 overall, 4-1 Big Ten), spanked the Spartans, (8-8, 2-3) at Breslin Student Events Center, 72-59.
Michael Jordan he’s not, but Jason Richardson’s above-the-rim style draws frequent comparisons.With every alley-oop dunk the sophomore guard throws down, people whisper, “He jumps like Jordan.”The leaping ability might be similar, but Richardson knows comparisons to “his Airness” are a bit much.“It’s great to be compared to him, but I don’t compare myself to Jordan,” Richardson said.
One team will be looking to move up in the rankings while the other will have revenge on its mind.Last year, MSU upset No.
Despite playing for the Detroit Pistons, Mateen Cleaves has a chance to add to his college résumé. Cleaves and the 2000 NCAA championship Spartans were nominated thursday for the 2001 ESPY Awards.The 1999-2000 MSU men’s basketball team was nominated for College Team of the Year.
AUBURN HILLS - They spotted each other from across the court and immediately headed toward the center during the pregame shoot-a-round at Wednesday’s Detroit Pistons-Toronto Raptors game.
When Ron Mason takes his No. 1-ranked Spartan hockey team to Sault Ste. Marie this weekend, he promises that hockey is first and foremost on his mind.Mason will be returning to Lake Superior State, the school that gave him his first head coaching job 35 years ago, for a two-game series tonight and Saturday.
Candice Jackson has never spent more than a few days off the court during the past 10 years.Now, the women’s basketball team’s freshman guard from Lansing Everett High School will have to spend her basketball time in physical therapy.After starting 7 of 13 games and becoming the team’s fourth-leading scorer, an MRI Tuesday morning confirmed she has a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.
The MSU women’s basketball team is confident it can win tonight versus Wisconsin in spite of beating its last two opponents by a combined three points.After escaping Minnesota on the road Sunday, 66-65, head coach Joanne P.
MSU head coach Tom Minkel was looking at an impressive résumé when he interviewed internationally renowned Cuban lightweight wrestler Alexis Vila for a vacant assistant head wrestling coach position.
MSU head coach Tom Izzo said Monday that the Big Ten has many teams playing well going into the second week of conference play.
As students enter their first week of classes this semester after a long and relaxing holiday break, those who are supporters of Detroit professional sports teams, such as myself, should be saying one thing to themselves: Thank goodness for our sanity - we’re back.
When Joe Blackburn was a sophomore he set MSU records for goals against average, saves percentage, earned CCHA Best Goaltender honors, was named to the All-Great Lakes Invitational team and named NCAA West All-American.Then Ryan Miller came along.Now a senior, Blackburn has lost his starting job to the sophomore phenom from East Lansing, and has almost become a forgotten member of the top-ranked Spartans.Miller has already broken Blackburn’s goals against record, earned All-CCHA honors and tied the school record for career shutouts - in only a season and a half.Miller had started 24 straight games for MSU before head coach Ron Mason finally gave Blackburn the call in net against Yale on Friday.
In the beginning there were doubts.Critics pointed to a criminal record as a severe roadblock for him to succeed, with charges of shoplifting, battery and receiving stolen property.Then there was the hurdle of trying to qualify academically to be eligible to play Division I college basketball, as he was 20 points below the score needed on the SAT.
Tom Izzo was starting to wonder if he was cut out for his job. The long-time Spartan basketball assistant was in his first season as MSU’s head coach in 1995 and the Breslin Student Events Center was only half-full for home games. Fans were trying to figure out if he was the team’s problem or the answer after a losing streak dropped MSU’s record down to .500. In the middle of Sunday morning practice, Izzo was looking at the faces of his players, searching for a way out of MSU’s slump when he heard somebody pounding on the Breslin Center door. The coach scaled the steps of the arena racking his mind for someone who would have the audacity to disrupt his practice. And there was the culprit. The winningest coach in college hockey history, Ron Mason, peering through the glass door and into the concourse. Mason had been at MSU for 17 years, almost longer than Izzo had been out of college.
It’s not easy being at the top. For the first time since Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson roamed the campus in the late 1970s the Spartans held the No.
MINNEAPOLIS - The MSU women’s basketball team has proven it can handle pressure by winning another Big Ten buzzer-beater. In its past two conference games, MSU (2-1 Big Ten, 8-6 overall) has stayed alive and won at the buzzer, this time squeezing by Minnesota (0-3 Big Ten, 7-7 overall), 66-65.
You don’t have to go to an Ivy League school to figure out you can’t win a hockey game without scoring a goal.And that was one feat Yale couldn’t accomplish in its series against MSU at Munn Ice Arena this weekend.MSU senior goaltender Joe Blackburn blanked the Bulldogs 5-0 on Friday night and sophomore goaltender Ryan Miller earned a 4-0 shutout Saturday as MSU extended its unbeaten streak to 18 (15-0-3).Yale (6-8-0) outshot the top-ranked Spartans (16-1-4 overall, 9-1-3 CCHA) both games, but Blackburn made 31 saves and Miller turned away 36 shots to earn the wins.
Bloomington, Ind. - It’s tough for any freshmen to come into the Big Ten and contribute right away, and injuries only make it more difficult. For Freshman guard Marcus Taylor those expectations have been higher than most freshmen since the day he committed to MSU. As a Lansing native, the hometown hero is averaging over 20 minutes a game as the Spartan’s backup point guard, but a broken ring-finger on his shooting hand (right) has slowed his progress. “I’ve only been practicing for a week now, and I haven’t been playing the full time either,” he said after MSU’s 59-58 lost at Indiana.
This weekend’s game at Loyola University marks the first road game of the season for the No. 2 MSU men’s basketball team.The undefeated Spartans (6-0) hold the nation’s second-longest home court winning streak at 34 games, but MSU won’t have the student cheering section, the Izzone cheering it on this weekend.MSU head coach Tom Izzo said defeating two of last year’s Final Four teams in the last two weeks - Florida and North Carolina - was a great accomplishment.
Holidays are traditionally set aside as a time for rest and recuperation and that philosophy doesn’t change for MSU’s top-ranked hockey team.After this weekend’s CCHA series with last place Ferris State, the Spartans (11-1-3 overall, 8-1-2 CCHA) will have almost three weeks to rejuvenate mentally and physically before the 36th annual Great Lakes Invitational on Dec.