" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

I’ve decided not to post any commentary of a forward-looking nature until we get over to the new site. For now, let’s revel in the season that has been.
One of the things that made this season so special was the number of guys who stepped up at various times during the season to get [...]

MSU guts out their 15th conference win 62-51 in a 68-possession.  StatSheet box score.
Raise your hand if you had us winning the conference by FOUR games:

TEAM
CONFERENCE

OVERALL

Michigan State
15-3
25-5

Illinois
11-7
23-8

Purdue
11-7
22-9

Ohio State
10-8
20-9

Penn State
10-8
21-10

Wisconsin
10-8
19-11

Minnesota
9-9
21-9

Michigan
9-9
19-12

Northwestern
8-10
17-12

Iowa
5-13
15-16

Indiana
1-17
6-24

In a conference with 8 teams deserving of an NCAA bid–and a 9th team that will probably end up a couple blown leads away from the Big [...]

MSU scoots by Iowa 62-54 in a 59-possession game.  StatSheet box score.
The reflexive thing to say after you’ve beat a vastly inferior team by just 8 points at home is to say the team “lost focus” or “didn’t keep their foot on the pedal.”  I’m going to resist that temptation and say MSU did exactly [...]

I’m back–like a bad rash.
Rankings Update

AP: #6 (up from #9)
Coaches: #5 (up from #9)
Blogpoll: #6 (up from #11)
Sagarin: #7 (up from #8)
Kenpom: #9 (up from #11)
RPI: #6 (up from #7)
Bracketology: #2 seed (steady from last week)
Crashing the Dance: #2 seed (steady from last week)

Crashing the Dance has us as the highest of the #2 seeds.  [...]

The Spartans battle past the Wolverines 54-42 in a 55-possession game.  StatSheet box score.
This is not the bar graph we were expecting:
Stats by StatSheet.com

They turned the ball over more than we did.  And we barely outrebounded them.
In the end, it came down to creating scoring opportunities.  We converted 2 more field goals and 9 more [...]

The Spartans bury the Gophers 76-47 in a 65-possession game.  StatSheet box score.
A very impressive start to the new home-court winning streak, to say the least.  MSU did everything we thought they needed to do, and they did it in abundance:

Knocked down perimeters shots (7-12 on 3-pointers).
Controlled both the offensive and defensive glass (42-26 overall [...]

Rankings Update

AP: #7 (steady from last week)
Coaches: #7 (up from #10)
Sagarin: #8 (up from #10)
Kenpom: #18 (up from #23)
RPI: #3 (up from#4)
Bracketology: #2 seed (up from #3 seed)

The human voters now agree that we’re the best two-loss, non-UNC team in the country.  Sagarin basically agrees (with one-loss Clemson ranked a spot ahead of us there) [...]