Lots to look forward to with Hockey & Basketball; but what’s happening elsewhere?
Men’s basketball, of course, just won the Big Ten regular season title by three games after beating Michigan for the second time this year and is gearing up for the conference tournament. MSU will play Oregon or Indiana at noon on Friday. Meanwhile Hockey won their second consecutive conference title, earned a bye for the first round of the Big Ten tournament, and now will play Notre Dame in the semi-finals on Saturday.
So lots of good stuff there. But there are also a lot of great things going on with MSU’s other winter/spring sports. Let’s take a look at what’s happening elsewhere in the athletic department.
Eighth-ranked MSU Gymnastics was in Huntsville, AL on Sunday at the Elevate the Stage meet. The Spartans finished fourth in their last regular season multi-team event. MSU’s 197.150 was just behind #6 Cal (197.200) but ahead of #14 Alabama and #24 North Carolina.
Gymnastics has one more competition against Bowling Green this Sunday in Jenison Field House before going to the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor on March 22.
MSU is 13-3 on the season and 8-1 in the Big Ten.
Women’s Basketball went into the Big Ten tournament as the #6 seed but fell to #11 Iowa 74-61 last week. The Spartans have been typically strong late in games this year but were outscored 20-13 by Iowa in the fourth quarter of this one. The second quarter was also rough for MSU as Iowa had a 20-9 advantage.
MSU now sits at 21-9 and must now wait for the NCAA Tournament selection show on Sunday at 8 PM to see what happens next.
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Baseball is off to a 12-3 start. With winter being what it is in Michigan, all of these games have been away from home. The Spartans opened the season in Cary, NC getting two wins against Western Michigan and another two against Monmouth.
After Cary, it was on to Corpus Christi, TX and wins against Washington State and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. MSU dropped their last game on this trip, falling 15-9 to UCLA, but it wasn’t played as a conference game.
The Spartans were in Greenville, SC for their spring training trip. Here, MSU started off the week by sweeping three games from Harvard before suffering just their second loss of the season to Western Carolina. MSU finished the week by defeating Cornell and Winthrop and then split two games with Alabama-Birmingham.
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After three long road trips, Michigan State finally gets a game at home today when they face Michigan at 4:05 PM. After taking on the Wolverines, MSU heads on the road again for a three game weekend series at Iowa.
Softball is 7-9 overall but on a three-game win streak. Like Baseball, each of these games has been away from East Lansing. MSU started 0-4 with two losses in Tucson, AZ to #16 Arizona, and also falling to #11 Alabama and Western Michigan.
The Spartans closed the Arizona trip with a win over the Broncos before winning two of three in Athens, GA. MSU fell to #10 Georgia but had victories against Longwood and Western Carolina.
Next, it was onto the Roadrunner Classic in San Antonio, TX where MSU struggled to win just one of four games
Finally, after dropping their first game in the Miami (OH) Tournament, the Spartans responded with three straight wins with two coming against Northern Kentucky while also defeating tournament host Miami once.
MSU will remain on the road in Oklahoma City tomorrow through Sunday to open Big Ten play with two games against Minnesota and two more against Northwestern.
Men’s Golf is also into their spring season and are coming off a first-place team finish at the Colleton River Collegiate event in Bluffton, SC on March 2-3. The Spartan golfers defeated 15 other teams and MSU’s Lorenzo Pininili won the individual title with a 6 under par.
Men’s Golf will be at the Johnie O at Sea Island (GA) tournament on March 17-18.
Women’s Golf were also winners at the Spartan Sun Coast Invitational in Sarasota, FL in mid-February. Katie Lu shot 7 under par on the second day of the two day match to help MSU come from 6th place after day one to take the title over 14 other teams.
Women’s Golf will be at the Valspar Invitational this weekend in Augusta, GA.
Men’s Tennis sits at 6-5 overall and 2-0 in the Big Ten so far in their winter season. The Spartans opened 4-0 with wins over #7 Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Western Michigan, and Liberty before dropping five in a row, all on the road. MSU fell to #2 TCU, #19 Tennessee, Clemson, Boise State, and #27 Cornell but rebounded with two conference wins at home. MSU defeated #49 Washington 5-2 on Friday and #54 Oregon 4-2 on Sunday.
MSU hosts Arizona today at 5 PM before traveling to Wisconsin for another Big Ten match on Friday.
Women’s Tennis is 9-4 overall and 1-1 in the Big Ten. MSU opened Big Ten play with a 4-1 loss at #52 Iowa on March 7 but rebounded to beat #44 Nebraska 4-2 in Lincoln on Sunday.
MSU hosts Penn State on Saturday and Ohio State on Sunday. Both matches start at noon in the MSU Indoor Tennis Center.
Men’s and Women’s Track & Field competed at the Big Ten Indoor Championships on February 28 and March 1. Over the course of 18 events, the men finished 15th while the women took 9th – one point ahead of Michigan. Oregon won both the men’s and women’s championships.
Junior Elle Adrian will compete in the NCAA Indoor Championships this weekend in the weight throw after finishing fourth at the Big Ten meet.
Wrestling will send three Spartans to the NCAA Championships in Philadelphia on March 20-22. Caleb Weiand (125 pounds) and heavyweight Max Vanadia each finished eighth at the Big Ten Championships while Remy Cotton (197 pounds) finished tenth. All three are redshirt freshmen.
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Finally, Rowing will head to Columbus, OH on Saturday for a scrimmage against Ohio State before traveling to Sarasota, FL for the Sunshine State Invitational later this month.