A swift fall followed a historic season start for the MSU volleyball team, but they regained their footing against another sliding Big Ten team.
In the final game of the season, the MSU women’s soccer team was unable to upset No. 22 Penn State, as the Nittany Lions came away with the 3-0 victory on the back of Maya Hayes’ two goals. Penn State (13-5-1 overall, 7-4 Big Ten) derailed the Spartans (9-8-2 overall, 3-8 Big Ten) on senior day at DeMartin Stadium when they honored lone senior and MSU defender Kelsey Mullen. Mullen injured her knee in early October and missed four games prior to Friday, but head coach Tom Saxton was determined Mullen would play her final game in a Spartan game.
Let’s begin with a stroll down memory lane. That’s not too much to ask for a university and fanbase obsessed with the past, right? In fact, many of you never left. I understand most of you have simply gone along with the elitist, holier-than-thou rhetoric you’ve heard from Michigan fans and supporters all your life. The sense of superiority and arrogance has been passed along for generations. For those of you that picked it up from a real alumnus instead of in the Wal-Mart clearance section, good for you! That’s a rare feat. Slide those blue-and-yellow tinted glasses off and take a look at the real world, where quarterbacks don’t wear No. 98 and people don’t act like they reinvented the wheel for playing night games. Like the females in Ann Arbor, the past isn’t as glamorous when you take a longer look.
One of my earliest interactions with Michigan State started with a female Spartan screaming at me to suck a part of her body that she categorically cannot possess. This was during my sophomore year two years ago during the “touch” football game The Michigan Daily and The State News play every Friday before the real football players battle on Saturday. I grew up in California not knowing a thing about Michigan State or why there is such animosity (for MSU fans reading this, that means “bad blood” ) between these two schools. I’m not like a lot of my classmates, the ones that grew up with or knowing Spartan fans, or the ones who applied to both schools, just in case they don’t get into Michigan. Everything I know about Michigan State comes from personal experience — there were no preconceived ideas or stereotypes that come with growing up in this area.
The MSU cross country team is preparing for one of its biggest meets of the season on Nov.
With just three games left in the regular season, the MSU men’s soccer team looks to bounce back after a string of underwhelming performances against defending NCAA champion Indiana Friday at 7 p.m.
As focus turns to the biggest rivalry at MSU, Tom Anastos is focused on a team he’s never seen before.
In her debut college game, Tori Jankoska put up 27 points, had 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals, leading the Spartans to a 100-52 victory over Ferris State University. Women’s basketball head coach Suzy Merchant was pleased with Jankoska’s performance.
The earliest memory of the MSU-Michigan rivalry for linebacker Max Bullough and guard Blake Treadwell is a shared one. The two were spectators at Spartan Stadium on Nov.
Good defense and even better shooting led the No. 18 MSU women’s basketball game to a 100-52 win against Ferris State on Wednesday night at Breslin Center in the first of the team’s two preseason games.
Tuesday was a night of firsts for Gavin Schilling. In the MSU men’s basketball team’s season opening 101-52 exhibition win against Grand Valley on Tuesday night, the highly touted freshman forward made his first appearance in green and white. “I had the mindset coming in that I can’t be too nervous, and I expected good things,” Schilling said. “Nothing new, nothing surprising. I played good and brought a lot of good things to the team tonight.”
It’s the start of a new season, and the No. 18 women’s basketball team will kick off the preseason Wednesday as the Spartans look to improve on last year’s 25-9 record. MSU will face Ferris State at 6 p.m. on Wednesday at Breslin Center for the first preseason game. The Spartans finished last season with their third-best record in school history and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament, before being knocked out in the second round by Maryland, 74-49.
The second half of the volleyball season is approaching, and the No. 14 Spartans will hope to begin the second half how they began the first one — with wins over Penn State and Ohio State. The first half upsets over then-No. 1 Penn State and then-No. 13 Ohio State were the first of a strong Big Ten start for volleyball. However, MSU (17-5 overall, 6-4 Big Ten) finished the first half with a four-game losing streak after winning the first 10.
For nearly two decades, head coach Mark Dantonio has been surrounded by the Michigan rivalry — and he rarely backs down from the opportunity to talk about it. Whether it’s during his time at Ohio State, his coordinator days under head coach Nick Saban at MSU or his more than seven years as the head coach of the Spartans, Dantonio acknowledges the rivalry with the Wolverines is a part of who he, and by extension, his family have become.
They ran in transition. They showed off improved jumpers and mechanics. They eventually settled into the suffocating defense MSU has become known for under head coach Tom Izzo in their first public performance of the highly-anticipated 2013-14 season.
Basketball season is upon us. After the first half of the first exhibition game, the No. 2 MSU men’s basketball team leads Grand Valley State, 47-24.
It’s only a preseason game, but the No. 2-ranked men’s basketball team will kick off its highly anticipated season at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Breslin Center against Grand Valley State. The Spartans only have three games, including preseason, before they travel to Chicago on Nov. 12 to partake in the Champions Classic against the nation’s No. 1 team, Kentucky.
When Alvin Ellis III was sitting down on Breslin Center’s floor during last week’s media day, with more than 14,000 empty seats above him, his mind went back to Midnight Madness. Before his name was the first one called to introduce the team, Ellis nervously waited walking down the stairs with Future’s “Chosen One” ?blaring from the speakers. But once he emerged, Ellis got a ?feeling for what he will be in for when thousands of seats are filled with a sea of green and white on gameday.
With a second-straight Big Ten loss to No. 13 Northwestern on Saturday, the window for earning a share of the Big Ten regular season championship closed for the field hockey team (8-9 overall, 3-2 Big Ten). The somewhat unlikely 3-0 start to conference play won’t amount to Big Ten honors. But with one Big Ten game left, the regular season is approaching its end.
CHAMPAIGN, ILL. — Standing at the podium in a dank, hole-in-the-wall press room, complete with dingy ceiling tiles, florescent lights and a drooping Big Ten Network backdrop and buried in the depths of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium, head coach Mark Dantonio knew what his team had done.