Going bowling! (Michigan State 26, Minnesota 10)...and my week in Spartan sports

It sure wasn't pretty, which seeing as how this MSU football season has gone, was completely appropriate--but the Spartans wore down Minnesota 26-10 and clinched a sixth straight bowl appearance.

As far as the good goes in this game, Le'Veon Bell had a tremendous day (35 carries, 266 yards, 1 touchdown) in what could very well be his final regular season game as a Spartan.

The bad has to be Andrew Maxwell. I hate throwing a collegiate athlete under the proverbial bus, but Maxwell seems to have regressed as the season has worn on. I don't know if it's poor coaching or Maxwell simply not improving. His two interceptions were terrible and he continues to overthrow receivers. The quarterback position should be wide open in the spring and summer, and I'd like to see incoming freshman Damion Terry get a serious look. (And that, my friends, is my two-bit analysis).

Now, I've read some comments from MSU fans basically stating, "What is there to be excited about? Why do we accept mediocrity?" Nobody is accepting mediocrity, and I doubt anyone is excited about a trip to the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, but a sixth straight bowl trip is important for this program. It demonstrates a level of consistency under Dantonio that has not existed in many, many years. Not even George Perles was able to lead MSU to six straight bowl appearances (however, in fairness to George, it was a bit more difficult to become bowl-eligible in the eighties and early nineties). So count me as one of the "sunshine blowers" who is happy to see the Spartans going to a bowl game.

***

I went to two MSU basketball games this week. On Tuesday, my wife was the lucky recipient of four tickets  to the Boise State game. (Her employer is a sponsor of Spartan athletics and receives comp tickets). The seats certainly aren't prime, but it is always fun to attend a game at Breslin.  As it turned out, Boise State (and the officials) offered a stiff challenge for the Spartans. In what was undoubtedly the most surreal game I have ever attended at Breslin, I worried at one point that the arena would break out into a full riot when Derrick Nix was called for a questionable elbowing foul and an irate Tom Izzo received a technical foul. It got downright ugly at Breslin. The Izzone was getting into it with a few Boise State fans behind the Broncos' bench, and police got into the middle of the verbal sparring match. Thankfully, the arena calmed down, the Spartans regained control of the game and escaped with a 74-70 win.

I was looking forward to watching freshman phenom Gary Harris play in person, but he was knocked out of the game when he ran into a moving screen and separated his shoulder. After spending much of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning filled with anxiety over Harris' fate, I (and every other MSU basketball fan) was relieved to learn he will only be out two to three weeks.

On Friday night, I attended the MSU/Oakland game with my sister-in-law's husband, who has season tickets. It was another nip-and-tuck battle against a fairly solid opponent, but the Spartans pulled away in the final four minutes or so and won 70-52. With Travis Trice and Gary Harris out, the guard position has been seriously depleted and that has undoubtedly hurt the Spartans, but perhaps in the long run it'll make them a better team.

Keith Appling had some absolutely "wow!" inspiring drives to the basket. He is an exceptional talent and takes over the game when the Spartans need him the most. Denzel Valentine, though he occasionally makes freshman mistakes, is a great passer and looks like someone who will develop into a dependable scorer. Adreian Payne had one of his very best games. Brandan Kearney. Russell Byrd, and Branden Dawson had some trouble hanging onto the basketball. That really could be said for the entire team: there were far too many turnovers in the game. I suspect some of that may be because two of MSU's best ballhandlers, Trice and Harris, are out of commission.

The Big...Thirteen?...no, Fourteen?

I am completely underwhelmed by the addition of Maryland and soon-to-be-added Rutgers.  Let's call it what it is, NCAA economics at its most cynical. It's a clear attempt to tap into the East Coast television market and not much more.

I don't like the direction college athletics is taking, but there is nothing I can do about it.

My afternoon at Spartan Stadium: (Northwestern 23, Michigan State 20)

First the good news about yesterday's excursion to MSU and the Spartan football game: The weather was perfect for a mid-November Saturday: Sunny, temperatures in the low fifties. Our seats, purchased weeks ago through StubHub, were pretty darned good for the ridiculously low price I paid for them. We were in Section 3, Row 32 on the east side of the north end zone.

We had a pleasant walk from the northwest corner of campus, past Kellogg Center, over the foot bridge crossing the Red Cedar, and cutting through the gauntlet of tailgaters crowding Jenison Fieldhouse on the south side of the walkway and the athletic fields on the north side. As we approached the north side of Spartan Stadium, the Spartan Marching Band was just approaching the tunnel. Our timing was perfect. I took this snapshot with my phone camera:

The Spartan Marching Band's consistent excellence is the one thing that can be counted on even when the football team is mediocre or bad...and this year's team is definitely mediocre.

I wonder if the football gods are now cursing us after two consecutive 11-win seasons.

I really didn't get too emotionally invested in this game, and never really expected MSU to beat Northwestern. However, the Spartans once again had plenty of opportunities to make the crucial plays necessary to win, but could not execute. It's the story of the season.

A few observations from the game:

The turnout was better than I expected. It was a late arriving crowd, as many of them were no doubt enjoying the sunny and warm for November weather, but by the midway point of the first quarter, I estimate a crowd hovering around 70,000. The fans were also into the game and behaved well, reserving most of their ire for the for some questionable officiating [doesn't that sound familiar?] at various points in the game.

I haven't been one of those fans demanding the firing of Dan Roushar, but I had to question MSU's 4th and goal playcall in the first quarter. It was the play immediately after Le'Veon Bell's run to the goal line where it appeared to everyone, except the officiating crew, that Bell had scored a touchdown. On the very next play, Bell ran again and was caught in the backfield. Neither Northwestern nor the 70,000 or so fans were fooled by the play. A play action pass or naked bootleg may have worked--but that's being a Monday morning quarterback.

I still can't believe MSU was winless in Big Ten home games this season.

DeAnthony Arnett made one great catch in the game, then disappeared for the rest of the day. His season has been just one mystery for what has proven to be a baffling year for MSU football.

Heading off to Spartan Stadium in a few minutes for the final home game of the season. I hope we can send off the seniors on a bright note.

Bye week, basketball, hockey, soccer, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum

There was no Spartan football this past Saturday, and that was just as well because the MSU football team could probably use a weekend off. I hope they can regroup after that horribly painful Nebraska loss, get healthy physically and mentally, and take out all their frustration on Northwestern this coming Saturday. For what it's worth, I will be at this Saturday's final home game against the Wildcats. It's the second consecutive Senior Day in which I will have my butt parked in Spartan Stadium. I bought the tickets way back in September (from StubHub) not knowing what was in store for this game. I had no idea at the time that the Spartans would enter this game simply trying to get a sixth victory and bowl eligibility.

In other Spartan news, basketball season started on Friday, November 10 at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. Unfortunately, the MSU basketball team lost to UConn, sending the Spartans' "gimmick game" record to winless. Listen, I agree that scheduling these unique games is great for MSU's national profile, but at some point it sure would be nifty to actually win one. Thankfully, the Spartans more than made up for this loss by beating Kansas on Tuesday night in what was an outstanding team performance. Gary Harris looks like the best MSU freshman hoopster since Jason Richardson (at least in this blogger's humble opinion) and Keith Appling made some brilliant plays in crunch time. After feeling really down about the team on Friday evening, I know am greatly encouraged after the Kansas game. Thus is the up-and-down roller coaster life of a sports fan.

In this past non-football weekend, the MSU hockey team split with Michigan (losing on Friday but pounding the Wolvies 7-2 on Saturday) and the Spartan soccer team defeated Michigan 2-1 on Sunday to capture the Big Ten soccer tournament. Clearly, as you have no doubt gathered from this blog, I'm primarily a football and basketball fan (though I have been to a handful of games at Munn Ice Arena and usually watch the MSU icers when they are on TV), but I always enjoy it when MSU wins in any sport.

This brings me to the non-sports segment of our program. On Sunday, my wife and I took our two boys to the brand-new Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum on MSU's campus. The museum had its open house that day. Like many other Lansing-area residents, I was a bit dubious of the building as it was being constructed. The architecture brought to mind the image of a dented sardine can. However, as the building neared completion, my opinion softened. By the time the museum approached its grand-opening, I was actually excited. For a museum dedicated to contemporary art, the architectural style made perfect sense, and I suppose I simply got used to seeing it alongside Grand River Avenue. It's odd metallic appearance was no longer quite so jarring.

As we walked towards the museum on Sunday, I felt myself becoming emotional--but emotional in a good way. I have seen many changes to MSU's campus in the last few decades, most of them positive. However, I never thought I'd see a modern, cutting-edge cultural addition like this. I was suddenly struck by how far Michigan State University has advanced since I was a student in the late 1980s, and now we have this wonderful museum that may attract art patrons from around the globe.

Entering the museum and looking at the art pieces and installations, many of which were highly conceptual and challenging, I pondered the juxtaposition of this avant garde art and sleepy Midwestern East Lansing. Old EL, though it is not by any means a hick town, may have to play a little catch-up to meet some of the demands of the hip art patrons who may be invading the city. I suppose time will tell.

It's NEVER easy being Green (Nebraska 28, Michigan State 24)

One would think that after being a Spartan fan for 35+ years, I'd be used to gut-wrenching losses, but I gotta tell you they never get easier, and in the pantheon of brutally painful losses, this one against Nebraska was a doozy.

A few posts ago, I wrote that all the emotion had essentially been beaten out of me throughout this season--well, as you probably could guess, that was not entirely true. I was up and down an emotional roller coaster throughout this game and was left speechless by the result--so ins short, I had plenty of emotion to give in this game.

Before I start going off on the officials for the absolutely horrendous pass interference call that gave Nebraska first-and-goal and, for all intents and purposes, the win--let me say that there was plenty of terrible officiating that went both ways.  Michigan State also had plenty of opportunities to ice the game, but were never able to make THE big play to accomplish that goal. That's been the story of this football season.

There were so many opportunities for the Spartans to put the final nail in the Huskers' coffin: the inability to pick up a first down on the final possession (just like in the Michigan game), the Johnny Adams penalty on the shoulda coulda been touchdown interception. (If you ask me, that play was the turning point in the game. MSU would have had all the momentum and a 17-point lead if that touchdown counts. Instead, the ball ends up on the MSU 10(ish) yard line and the Spartans only keep the ball for less than a couple minutes. Just a KILLER turnaround.

(I have gone back and viewed Johnny Adams' alleged penalty and it is, at best, a questionable call. More than the phantom pass interference, this call was the one that was the turning point in the game).

To tell you the truth, after that interception touchdown was called back, I had a sense of impending doom. Rip me all you want, but it probably comes with the territory of being a Spartan football fan. The game felt like the 2009 Iowa game: a game in which the Spartans, for the most part, played a very good game but just could not make THE DEFINING play to seal the deal. All throughout that '09 Iowa game, I had a feeling that it would not end well, and I had the same feeling today.

Well, enough about this for now. Maybe I'll write more about this later. All I really know at this point is that Obama better win on Tuesday or this will be one brutal Fall.

Can the Spartans finally beat Nebraska?

Michigan State has never beaten Nebraska in football. In fact, the Spartans have never come within two touchdowns of beating the Huskers. In the teams' six previous contests dating all the way back to 1914, MSU has been outscored 205-37, Even if the 1995 and 1996 humiliations are removed (50-10 and 55-14 losses at the hands of some great Tom Osborne-coached teams) the Spartans have been outscored 100-13. The Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals have a closer all-time head-to-head record than MSU and Nebraska. (Okay, that is a bit of an overstatement--but at least the Washington Generals have one win over the Globetrotters).

Now that I've established how one-sided this series has been, isn't it finally time for MSU to get a win? This streak can't last forever, and the Spartans will want to make amends for one of their worst performances of the 2011 season, a 24-3 loss to Nebraska in Lincoln.

I hope that the Nebraska fans don't invade Spartan Stadium en masse. I hope that MSU's defense can continue what they did last week against Wisconsin's run game and shut down the Huskers' high-powered offense. But most importantly, I hope that MSU's offense can expand upon the good things it did last week down the stretch against Wisconsin--at least do enough to outscore Nebraska. I'd be happy with a 10-7 or 14-13 type of win.

(I am watching the Michigan/Minnesota game while writing this and Michigan's offense looked absolutely woeful in its first possession of the game. Devin Gardner is playing in place of Denard Robinson and all I have to say is "ouch, not pretty.").

I will not make any predictions regarding the MSU/Nebraska game, since my predictions are never accurate, but I will of course be rooting mightily for a Spartan win.