You know, I think we'll really miss Dawson's rebounding and athleticism, but let's not forget he wasn't all that much of a contributor his 1st 15 games and we did just fine then, he was not getting very many minutes at all until half way through our regular season. We'll need guys to step up for sure, especially on the boards, but have shown we can play great this season without Dawson. We'll need a couple shooters to step up too as we'll be more perimeter orientated on offense now.

Wood and Appling need to be more consistent. If they don't, early exit.

Good start, hot shooting early, got a little lax on defense, but a solid opening game and we got a lot of guys involved with 7 players scoring at least 8 points. Adrian Payne was dominant at times.

Wow, Wisky was up 20-9, since then we've outscored them 26-5. They look like their legs are heavy as they don't go as deep as we do, keep it up and we can run them off the floor in the 2nd half.

It really pays to go 9 or 10 deep in a conference tourney. Spartans definitely looked like the fresher team.

OK, how about a 37-7 run since being down 11. Up by 19 all of the sudden.

Should be an interesting matchup this afternoon. MSU has been shooting well from outside which has been Ohio State's Achilles heel this year.

Great game so far. Very intense and both teams came to play today. I like the pace so far and if we can keep it fast we should wear them down.

The refs are so inconsistent. Not biased but all over the page. I have seen players on both teams struggling because half the time the refs let them be physical and the other half they call it tight.

silverbullet97 said:

The refs are so inconsistent. Not biased but all over the page. I have seen players on both teams struggling because half the time the refs let them be physical and the other half they call it tight.

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Agreed, there have been some strange no calls both ways and then some ticky tack stuff too. The energy in the 2nd half is key, this is where we hope to wear them down. We need to run, run, and run, but do we have enough left in the tank to push it?

What an incredible game!!!!

Best played game I have seen all season long.

Looks like Sparty's superior outside shooting is going to be the difference in this one. Still a lot of guys have stepped up and delivered when their teams needed them today. Wow!

CHAMPS!!!!

Good win for Sparty there. Still our team had a lot of fight in it for only having 1 senior and 1 junior. Hopefully, the younger guys learned something from this one and will be ready for next season.

I could not be more proud of the Spartans. That game was an instant classic. Love it! The whole country is watching this game, it's the title game for the B1G and no other games are left on any other channels. What do we get? 2 teams playing all out and leaving it all on the court. The B1G came off looking great as both teams played great. This game had it all and was as well played as any game I've seen all year. The B1G showed the whole country what quality of ball is being played in the NCAA's toughest conference.

I can't say enough about the job Izzo has done, this team wasn't ranked to start the year and lost its 1st 2 games. He's built this team and each and every player has improved exponentially from the start of the year. The loss last week was a tough one and the loss of Branden Dawson made it harder to swallow, but this team buckled down and played harder and better than it has all season. They left it all on the floor and were rewarded with a Championship and a #1 seed in the dance. Wow!

The work Izzo has done with the bigs has been especially impressive, will any team in the country have a better or more imposing center tandem than Payne and Nix next year? Those 2 have come so far and they'll get some minutes together next year too. Can you imagine a front line of Nix, Payne, and Dawson with a 6-6 Harris at the 2? Wood played his best game and stepped up when we needed him most. Appling is becoming a great PG, he understands the offense now and next year will be the team's leader. He is a great ball handler now too, Craft didn't even harass him as much as he does other PGs as Appling was blowing by him when he did. Travis Trice is playing hurt and gave everything he had and is showing he will be a quality player at this level. Kearney has a bright future ahead of him too.

This is Izzo's best coaching job and this team can win it all if the chips fall right.

GO GREEN!

Pure class from Draymond Green:

When asked if MSU was the true B1G champ now,