Gallery: Big Ten Tournament S...
The State News
Senior center Drew Naymick reacts to MSU’s placement in the NCAA Tournament during the selection show Sunday evening at Breslin Center. MSU will face Temple during the first round of the tournament Thursday in Denver.
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Morgan making continual impact early in conference season
Men's basketball opens Big Ten play 2-0, beats Northwestern 77-66
Women's basketball stopped by Indiana, 62-48
Spartans finally forming an identity
Women's basketball stopped by Indiana, 62-48
Spartans finally forming an identity
No. 5-seed Spartans to play Temple Thursday
The MSU men’s basketball team didn’t know much about the Temple Owls when it was revealed the two teams would meet in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, but The Spartans were confident it would only be a matter of hours before they were well educated.
The Spartans (25-8), who boast one of the best video scouting systems in the country, will face Temple (21-12) on Thursday in the Denver first-round site. MSU is a five seed in the South Region, while Temple is a 12 seed.
“As most games go this time of year, you have to scout the opponent but you have to get your team playing well and I think that’s what our emphasis has to be on,” MSU head coach Tom Izzo said in a news conference after the games were announced. “It still comes down to not who coaches or what they do — it comes down to how they play. We’ve got to play and we’ve got to play for 40 minutes.”
The Spartans are 5-6 against the Owls in the program’s history, with the last meeting coming during the NCAA Tournament in 2001, when the Spartans won, 69-62. That was the only Spartans victory against Temple on a neutral floor. MSU is 4-2 on neutral floors this season.
The two teams don’t have any opponents in common, but the Owls lost to quality opponents such as Tennessee, Florida, Villanova, Duke, Saint Joseph’s and Dayton. They won the Atlantic 10 conference tournament this weekend, defeating Saint Joseph’s 69-64 in the championship.
“They won that A-10 tournament with a lot of good teams in it,” senior center Drew Naymick said. “It’s a strong field this year; all teams are dangerous. We’ll be ready to go this weekend.”
The Spartans — one of four Big Ten teams (Wisconsin, MSU, Purdue and Indiana) to make it into the tournament — are coming off a Big Ten Tournament semifinal loss to Wisconsin, 65-63.
“We have to move on,” junior center Goran Suton said. “We have to forget about that. This is a bigger stage. This is the most important time of the year right now.”
The Owls are led by Dionte Christmas, who averages 20.2 points and six rebounds a game. Christmas and their second-leading scorer, Mark Tyndale (15.9 points per game), are the only two players to average more than nine points per contest.
Should the Spartans win, they will face the winner of four-seed Pittsburgh (26-9) and 13-seed Oral Roberts (24-8). Both teams won their respective conference tournaments, making MSU the only team in the region’s foursome without a title this season.
“There’s no facts and no points any better to look at than we’d be playing two teams that won their conference championships,” Izzo said. “But you could make an argument that one team should have.”
Published on Sunday, March 16, 2008
Comments
Matt
03/16/08 @ 11:06pm
12:30 gametime on Thurs
Smokey
03/17/08 @ 8:34am
DAMMIT IT ALL! 12:30 on Thu. And I live and work in the central time zone, so 11:30 on Thu. Guess I’m calling in sick, cause I know if I come it at 7am and tell my boss I’m leaving at 1130 he’ll blow a gasket. Screw you NCAA selection committee! MSU Should be in the midwest regional and playing on Thu night or Friday!
Steve
03/17/08 @ 9:42am
Why bother watching the game? State will just get screwed over by whatever three arrogant officials are assigned to the game.
Dan
03/17/08 @ 10:14am
12:30. This is awful.
DJ COATRACK
03/17/08 @ 12:18pm
State wins this game by 16. chalk it!!!! Temple hits 15-18 3 pointers..only way Temple stays close.
The crying game is over, bring me 16 games thursday and 16 games friday, we’ve waited since November for this. Games are played on the floor, not the press box, not the chat rooms, and not by the stats guru’s. Lace’m up and play, this is the best weekend of the year for sports…PERIOD
We just take for granted that we will continue to be here. A #5 seed and people say it’s a bad year. Not making the tournament is a bad/off year, just ask Billy Donovan and Thad Matta. Anybody can have a great recruiting clas and ride them for a few yrs, make a habit out of it like Izzo does. We have a chance every year to play in this majestic tourney, that’s stay humble and hungry at the same time.
GO STATE——JUD KEEPS THE WEST COAST LOCKED DONE FOR THE SPARTANS
Another '06 Alum
03/17/08 @ 12:39pm
Great post DJ. I completely agree. There is a reason why there’s only a couple teams with longer streaks of making it to the big dance.
GO STATE!!
AAA
03/17/08 @ 2:26pm
Hey Smokey at least you don’t live farther west…that’s 10:30 am for me. Luckily, I live close enough to Denver that I just bought tickets and probably “won’t feel well” thursday. Even though they all know I am a huge MSU fan. Any other location though and I would have been just as upset.
Have you checked out the CBS streaming of the games for FREE over your computer? Watch it at work and actually get to see the whole game unlike with TV for the first several rounds. I do it and it is great.
Go Green!