March Madness
Following MSU’s basketball and hockey teams through postseason play.
Check out the Monday Madness Podcast from the State News Sports staff every Monday during post season play.
Recent posts
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In the end: WNIT quarterfinal match vs. U-M
It was as even as a matchup as the MSU women’s basketball team could have asked for.
The Spartans defeated their cross-state rivals in overtime, 45-40, ending Michigan’s season in the fourth round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
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Countdown to faceoff: MSU vs. Notre Dame
Colorado Springs, Colo. — As someone who’s seen all but six of MSU’s 40 hockey games this season, I can tell you that the two games against Notre Dame in January were two of the most intense, competitive games I watched this season.
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Silver lining in loss
In the end: WNIT quarterfinal match vs. U-M
It was as even as a matchup as the MSU women’s basketball team could have asked for.
The Spartans defeated their cross-state rivals in overtime, 45-40, ending Michigan’s season in the fourth round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
Seeing the score, it’s obvious that this game wasn’t all too thrilling on the offensive end.
The first half, where U-M ended with the lead at 23-16, was worse than watching the first-half 30-point domination the men’s team experienced against Memphis — at least in that game there were points being scored.
After averaging 63.3 points per game throughout the season, it was disheartening to watch the Spartans miss the basket time and time again to finish the game shooting 29.2 percent from the field and 10 percent from 3-point range.
Granted, both teams knew what the other was made of, having played twice in the regular season. This was a main factor in the low-scoring game, as defensive systems and plays were more ingrained than any non-conference team would have been able to accomplish in just a few days.
But in the end, winning is still winning. Hopefully MSU’s game against North Carolina State at 7 p.m., Wednesday, will go a little more smoothly.
Comments
anonymous
03/31/08 @ 8:45am
The team played a great game, and the last 10 minutes of regulation were some of the most exciting minutes of basketball I’ve seen all season. This article makes it sound like it was excruciating for the writer to sit through it. The last article was pretty pathetic on that end too. Yes, this game was all about the defense, but I have never gotten so pumped up by watching a team play defense in my life. They completely shut Michigan down. Everyone else who was there seemed to agree with me as the whole place was standing for much of the end of the game. And why doesn’t this article ever mention that MSU was down by 10 with 10 minutes to go and it took a great offensive effort, led by senior Alisa Wulff, to overcome the Wolverines? This article looks like it was written by looking at the box score only.