This Blog Has an Expiration Date...

That's the bad news.

The good news is that I'm going to be blogging more frequently once MSU ends its run in the NCAAs. Where? I can't say yet, there are details being worked out and such.

Just know that even though this blog is coming to end, I'll still be around, albeit somewhere else.

Now get ready for what might be the most unpredictable Big 10 tournament in years, which means that'll probably play out according to seed. That'd be fine by me.

Five Things...I Liked about the Minnesota Game.

That was refreshing. The score was 13-8 about eight minutes into the first half, MSU had turned it over a few times, and then...



Hysteria. The only time I can recall a first half going that well for the Spartans was the Ohio State four or five years ago when they shot about 80% for the first half. Even then, the defense wasn't nearly as good. Here's five things I liked about the game.

5. The field goal defense
Minnesota's shooting: 3-12 from three, 15-52 total for a FG percentage of 28.8%. Yay to not being victimized by a red-hot shooter, and double yay for showing the Big Ten that the Spartans still have a defense.

4. The "WASH YOUR FACE" chant
Cruel to Colton Iverson? Yes. Unnecessary? Of course. Funny? Yup. The pressure must be causing him to breakout, because I don't know how your face goes from this in high school:

To this (on the far left):


3. The remergence of Chris Allen as a shooting threat
13 points on 4-7 shooting for Allen, 2-3 FT, 2-4 on three-pointers. He's now out of the slump, which is more important since...

2. The ability to win big without Raymar
He'll be back over he gets over the walking pneumonia/Spanish Flu/Captain Trips that he has, but Final Four teams have to show that they can function at a high level without one of their best players.

1. Winning on the home court again
Self-explanatory. MSU needed a win at home after the Northwestern and Penn State debacles, and got one. They're still one game clear of the rest of the Big Ten, and that probably won't change against Indiana in a few days.

Tomorrow: Five reasons why we'll beat Indiana, which is about four more reasons than necessary.

This Blog's Direction + Bonus Minnesota Preview

Hey y'all, sorry about the delay. I was thinking about changing the direction of this blog into more of a place where I post daily, but shorten the length of the posts a bit to keep up with the demands Chemical Engineering places on me. In that scenario, I'd have something up by about 9:30-10 AM every day, but would just be a brief rundown of things that happened to MSU the previous day. I'll have the prototype post up tomorrow morning, let me know if it strikes your fancy.

As for the Minnesota game today, if Suton's healthy (he hyperextended his knee in Monday's practice, he says he'll play, but I still hyperventilated a bit when I heard), MSU wins. If not, we need two things:

- Roe to make up for the offensive boards we'll miss

- Blake Hoffarber not to pull a Kevin Coble/Talor Battle and hit everything within halfcourt.

Call it MSU by five, and we'll take it, especially with the Purdue loss @ OSU yesterday.