SAULT STE. MARIE - Something was weird in the Upper Peninsula this weekend. I don’t know if the stars were misaligned or there was an ion imbalance in the air or what, but this definitely was no ordinary trip to the Soo for the Spartan hockey team. First of all, it’s mid-January and I was walking around without a jacket.
The country’s best turf management school will strut its stuff on the football field.The administration unanimously agreed Friday to switch the turf on Spartan Stadium to natural grass.“I have felt very passionately about putting natural grass into the stadium,” Trustee David Porteous said.
SAULT STE. MARIE - MSU skated on a fine line of disaster for much of its weekend series with Lake Superior State, but three Spartan seniors’ late-game heroics salvaged a sweep.
Andre Hutson’s playing status for MSU’s Jan. 21 game against Ohio State is uncertain after the senior forward was hospitalized after Saturday’s win over Wisconsin.
Sixteen games and 10 starting lineups later, the MSU women’s basketball team is still searching for the five players who can best set the tone for their games.At MSU’s loss to Illinois on Sunday, the 10th lineup - senior guard Christie Pung, senior forward Becky Cummings, senior guard Donita Johnson, junior guard Vnemina Reese and senior center Erin Skelly - gave all four seniors a chance to start.Three of those starters pulled in less than six points each - Cummings had a season-low four, Johnson had her lowest since Nov.
Lightning didn’t strike twice for the MSU wrestling team this weekend. After upsetting the then-third-ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys 21-10 at Jenison Field House last year, the 11th-ranked Spartans got pummeled 31-3 in a dual meet against the No.
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.