" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

Anyone notice how much love Goran Suton is getting in the media this week?
Suton responds after being main target of Izzo’s ire (LSJ)
MSU’s Suton is blossoming at last (Detroit News)
MSU’s Suton playing with passion (Mlive)
From the Mlive article:
What coach Tom Izzo told the group 24 hours before playing Wisconsin, while important, was nonetheless unremarkable.
For some [...]

Friday night, 9:57 pm (or shortly thereafter). Reliant Stadium, Houston. CBS.
Since we’ve already spent the last few days looking at Memphis, I’m going to stick mainly to the numbers tonight.
Memphis comes in at 35-1 on the season, the only loss being to Tennessee by a score of 66-62 on February 13. The [...]

There’s a third Big Ten team still alive in postseason play. Eleven Warriors has a preview of Ohio State’s NIT quarterfinal match-up tonight (9:00, ESPN2) against in-state rival Dayton. Apparently, Dayton coach Brian Gregory wasn’t allowed to get any help from his former boss in preparing for the Buckeyes.  Note also Gregory’s moxie [...]

Today’s mandatory story for MSU beat writers was about the Spartans’ willingness to play at the faster pace Memphis tends to play at:
Joe Rexrode: Slow, Slogging Spartans [facetious headline]
Steve Grinczel: Spartans Want to Run with Memphis
Dave Dye: Izzo says MSU won’t tailor game [slow the game down] to counter Memphis
From the Dye piece:
Izzo calls Memphis’ [...]

We interrupt Memphis week to bring you this dispatch from the larger world of college basketball: Yet Another Basketball Blog notes the following:

With two teams still alive, the Big Ten has already matched the number of NCAA Tournament wins (5) we’d expect based on their tournament seeds.
For the second consecutive year, the ACC has sent [...]

First, some required reading: Grant Wahl’s February SI piece on the dribble-drive motion (DDM) offense. Fascinating stuff, both from an X’s and O’s viewpoint and getting a behind-the-scenes look at how basketball coaches share innovations. Apparently, Calipari got the idea for the DDM offense from a juco coach from California named Vance Walberg. [...]

Results through the first weekend:
TMadison25 120 / 8 teams remaining
Kurt 117 / 10
Dr Huxtable 106 / 7
Devin 104 / 12
kj 103 / 5
spartanproducer 95 / 8
Dave 81 / 6
Dan 77 / 8
GBBound 76 / 9
NorthernSparty 67 / 5
wifeofaspartan 63 / 9
Hoopraker 63 / 9
Erik J 59 / 10
Big thanks to Dan for tracking the results [...]