I made it no secret that I was a little worried going into the game this past Sunday. Sure, Michigan State had already locked up the regular season championship with their win over Iowa on Thursday night, but there was still a matter of pride and getting beat on your home court by you instate rival would definitely be a blow to that pride.
Thankfully, all of my fears ended up being for nothing. Michigan State virtually bitch slapped Michigan when they came to East Lansing on Sunday afternoon. The first half wasn't even close, it was all MSU. Michigan did manage to come back a little bit in the second half, but it was too little too late as State already had the game on lock for the most part.
I'm actually shocked none of the U of M players fouled out of the game. They had a few how had to have been pretty close...
Friday night there were two games in the top 25. Illinois continued to pad their resume for the tournament by upsetting (18) Purdue 88 to 80.
On Saturday we had seventeen games in the top 25 and it was a day of upsets. (19) Kentucky had an upset win over (15) Missouri 91 to 83 and (20) Marquette took (6) St. John's to overtime but fell short 86 to 84. Arkansas squeak out a one point victory over (25) Mississippi State 93 to 92.
Penn State handed (12) Wisconsin an upset loss 86 to 75 and (7) Alabama had a barn burner taking (1) Auburn into overtime and beating them 93 to 91. Kansas had their own upset victory taking down (24) Arizona 83 to 76. That was all the upsets for the weekend, but they were still pretty impressive.
Finally, as I mentioned above, on Sunday (8) Michigan State handed (17) Michigan a loss 79 to 62.
You might think we get a little bit of a break, but today the conference tournaments start. Michigan State gets a first round bye in the Big Ten tournament and it is yet to be determined who they will face off against. I'd really love to see Michigan State win the tournament so they can be outright champs of the Big Ten with none of the regular season versus tournament debate.
I think though Coach Izzo is probably already looking towards bigger goals and this tournament might just be a technicality before they proceed on to the national tournament. Rumor has it they are already going to have a pretty tough section of the bracket when they finally land, but I guess we will see. This team showed a lot of people on Sunday that they are not to be messed with or taken lightly.
I think they can easily make it to the final four if not further.
We will see!
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