Basketball: Should be a very interesting game tonight against Illinois, and it’s really one of the most important games of the season yet for our team. The Illini are a better team than their record indicates…but they’ve obviously struggled quite a bit this season. Obviously, beggars can’t be choosers, and any road win for us is big; however, a win tonight could be especially important on a psychological level, since nobody on the team has ever won in Champaign. (Our last win down there was in 2002; for some perspective of how long ago that was, consider that our leading scorer in the game was Adam Ballinger, the major story was Marcus Taylor’s concussion, and there’s a good chance I watched the game on the big TV in the Case Hall cafeteria while eating smiley fries and salisbury steak, ha.)
Even if Illinois was able to play their best lineup, I’d still say that we should win, because we simply have the better team. However, Brian Randle is out for the rest of the season and Raymar Morgan should have a field day. Raymar only scored 10 points the last time around while being guarded by Randle, before eventually fouling out. This time, there’s no excuse. As kj said, it’s unlikely that MSU will have the opportunity to run-’n-gun like we were able to against Indiana; we’ll have to get our points in the halfcourt set, and it’s an excellent opportunity for Raymar to assert himself down low in a meaningful way–something he hasn’t done consistently since much earlier in the season.
Winning tonight would allow us to gain some confidence heading into the conference tournament, and it’s especially important to do so now because winning in Columbus on Sunday won’t be easy. We usually play well there (like last season, when Neitzel scored 29 and we really could have won) but OSU has played themselves back onto the tournament bubble by beating Wisconsin, and surely the game has higher stakes for them than it will for us.
Bottom line, tonight’s much more important than your average midweek game against a bottom-of-the-standings team. Turnovers have killed us on the road this season, but we’ve done a much better job of hanging onto the ball the past couple of weeks (even during the disappointing game in Madison). I think the Mr. Hyde version of MSU shows up on the road for the first time since the Minnesota game, and we take it 61-53.
One last thing from the Indiana game:
Not the best picture quality, but nice nonetheless.
Football: Exciting recruiting news continues to pour in, as yesterday Battle Creek Central junior running back Larry Caper verbally committed to MSU ($), turning down offers from Michigan, Iowa, Purdue, and others in the process. This means that we’ve now received commitments from 3 of the top 5 players in Michigan for the 2009 class, and 5 of the top 10: two running backs, a quarterback, a wide receiver, and a linebacker. Paul knows much more about recruiting than I do, and so I’m sure he’ll be weighing in soon…but this is really fantastic. Not only are these guys talented, but they’re from Michigan, and that we’re doing so well getting in-state commitments can only bode well for the future of our program.
Hockey: I’ll try to have a longer post about this either tomorrow or sometime this weekend, but the CCHA playoffs open tonight, as UNO takes on UAF. State, of course, has the weekend off, and will host either Lake State, UAF, UNO, BGSU, or Northern next weekend at Munn. Northern swept us pretty convincingly in Marquette a month ago, so obviously I’m rooting for OSU to take them out. Either way, however, ours is a team which has obviously performed in the postseason and should have plenty of confidence after finishing the regular season on a 5-1-0 run. If the seeding holds in the tournament, we’d have to play Miami in the semifinals. That’s no small order, of course, but I’ve been itching for a second chance against them after we didn’t bother showing up in the two games earlier this year…
