The Spartans, the hottest team in the league, have shown the ability to beat anybody — from the top-tier teams to the squads in the basement — and that’s exactly what a team needs to be successful in the postseason.
Jon Crandell didn’t have the typical path of a walk-on. He was just a normal student during his freshman year, playing intramural basketball, until former MSU walk-on guard DeMarcus Ducre spotted Crandell and told him to look more into basketball.
Isaiah Dahlman is the most likeable player on the MSU men’s basketball team. But it’s not because he’s a lockdown defender or will have the ball in his hands in crunch time. Raymar Morgan is the most frustrating player on the MSU men’s basketball team. But it’s not because he’s cold, indignant or an incompetent basketball player. As the two seniors’ careers in Green and White come to an inevitable end, it’s certain both players — who will go down as some of the program’s most valuable, in their own right — had an indelible impact on the success of MSU basketball through the past four years and its great promise for years to come. “We’re so different,” Dahlman said.
As a season wears on, coaches naturally become concerned with fatigue as their players deal with the rigors of a long season. MSU women’s basketball head coach Suzy Merchant is no different.
It’s finally playoff time. The Spartans will host a best-of-three quarterfinal series March 12-13 — and March 14, if necessary — after the first-round winners are reseeded.
The month every college basketball fan salivates over has arrived, and the MSU women’s basketball team will kick off what is sure to be a wild month in this weekend’s Big Ten Tournament at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
How afraid is the No. 11 MSU men’s basketball team of Penn State guard Talor Battle? Frightened enough to place a taped 3-point line four-to-five feet beyond the normal 3-point line.
The spring break forecast for the No. 24 MSU gymnastics team looks similar to that of many students: sun, breeze and maybe some beach. But unlike regular MSU students, the team has serious business to attend to.
It appears the Spartans are fully healthy and might have found the chemistry and spark needed after Sunday’s win at then-No. 3 Purdue. To continue their roll, they’ll have to stop the Nittany Lions, who boast one of the Big Ten’s top scorers and have won three of their last four.
Cetera Washington lives by the mantra that while defense wins games, rebounding wins championships. So it should be no surprise the junior forward recently has stepped on the accelerator in both areas, becoming a key force during MSU’s run of 10 wins in its past 11 games.
Competing against the nation’s best every week, the MSU wrestling team finally is in line to reap the benefits of facing a grueling schedule with a young lineup. As the team prepares for this weekend’s Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, it hopes the growth of its underclassmen will carry over in the results of the competition.
Although the Spartans posted an impressive regular season, everything is on the line as the CCHA Tournament approaches. MSU still is a bubble team trying to earn an at-large bid into the 16-team NCAA Tournament. And they likely will need a deep run in the conference playoffs to receive an invite to the “big dance.” Here’s a look at the Spartans’ regular season grades as they prepare for the CCHA Tournament:
Four members of the MSU women’s basketball team were honored by the Big Ten on Monday, led by senior center Allyssa DeHaan as the league’s Defensive Player of the Year and junior forward Kalisha Keane as the conference’s Sixth Player of the Year.
With the postseason here, MSU head coach Suzy Merchant is scaling back practices to keep her team fresh for a run in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.
After an unsettling home loss to Ohio State and a long week of practice, the MSU men’s basketball team realized they needed to sleep it off. At Breslin Center.
MSU played a tough, hard-nosed game to beat the Boilermakers on Sunday. For the first time maybe this entire season, the Spartans exhibited coinciding flashes of toughness, grit, heart and, well, good ol’ fashioned MSU basketball.
Following the MSU hockey team’s disappointing four-point weekend, hockey reporter Alex Difilippo analyzes the series’ impact on the Spartans’ NCAA Tournament chances and the upcoming CCHA Tournament.
MSU head coach Suzy Merchant called her four seniors — center Lauren Aitch, center Allyssa DeHaan, forward Aisha Jefferson and guard Mandy Piechowski — in for a meeting Friday, offering them the chance to start together for their final game at Breslin Center on Sunday.
The MSU women’s basketball team’s 70-50 win against Minnesota on Sunday at Breslin Center served three purposes: It sent the team’s four seniors out as winners, clinched the No. 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament and also gave the team 10 wins in its last 11 games, the second best regular season finish in program history, trailing only the 2004-05 national runner-up team that won 13 of its last 14.
West Lafayette, Ind. — Assist-to-turnover ratio usually is a useful stat to judge offensive efficiency. But when the ratio being looked at is field goals-to-turnovers, you know you had a tough day offensively.