There are not many teams in the country that are heading into the NCAA tournament hotter than the Michigan State Spartans. Go figure. Michigan State owns victories this season over Kansas, Providence, Louisville, the Terrapins (twice), Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and the Boilermakers, and of its five losses, three came by exactly one point. Today’s first-round opponent is the Ohio Valley tournament champions making its second-ever NCAA tournament appearance.
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So the lesson is the Big Ten will probably land a team in the Final Four and maybe in the national championship game. The 5-foot-7 native of IN also had seven points IN a weekend series against MI earlier this year, and three assists IN Ohio State’s dominating win over Cornell IN the championship game of the Florida College Classic tournament.
Point spread: The Spartans opened as 17-point favorites; the total was 139, according to sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark. Michigan State seemingly has it all in a superstar in Denzel Valentine, great three-point shooting, depth, ruggedness, chemistry, motivation, defense and great coaching.
“Those things are encouraging because in this tournament, you’re going to run into some teams with some really good guards…”, Izzo said.
Jobst scored the game victor on a rebound 13:47 into overtime, giving the Buckeyes a 4-3 win over Michigan State and a meeting with Minnesota.
“Our young men, they have a lot of Midwest kids”.
“It’s really good, because we can adapt to any different team and any kind of offense they bring us”, Schilling said.
“I thought we were uptight, you could see it obviously in the first shift”, said Anastos.
Key number: +16.4, Michigan State’s scoring margin, which is tops in the Big Ten.
Denzel Valentine paces the Spartans’ attack with 19.4 per outing while shooting almost 50 percent from the field, including 44.7 percent from long range. And perhaps most famously, the squad that won the 1999-2000 national championship was guided by a trio of star players who hailed from Flint, Michigan: Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson, and Charlie Bell. “I think they feel a sense of calmness, so to speak”. The winners will meet in the second round on Sunday.
Each Spartan outfit to advance to the Final Four has had at least two MI hoopsters (and an average of three) playing a heavy role in a deep March run. Potts averages 15 points a game and has been instrumental in the Raiders run to close the season after missing the final regular season game against Marshall with a concussion. “We are lose and free, and we will be ready to play and show it tomorrow”.
The Blue Raiders will have their hands full with arguably the best collegiate player this season in Valentine.
Jake Hildebrand made 44 stops in his final game in goal for the Spartans, while fellow seniors Michael Ferrantino and Matt DeBlouw netted goals for MSU, along with Joe Cox. The smart money here sides with Michigan State.
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After covering the spread in 12 straight games, Michigan State has failed to do so in back-to-back games. He sounded very confident in his team’s chances saying “We will take our game plan and do what we have to do”.
