The Michigan State Spartans and the Delaware Blue Hens are playing in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday and the matchup comes live on TNT and streaming online from the Spokane Arena in the Pacific northwest and they come in a tough east region with Virginia and now MSU will be looking to advance into the next round.
President Obama picked Tom Izzo's team to make a run to the championship and now the players will try and make that happen and they are led by a nice group that includes Gary Harris, Branden Dawson, Keith Appling and Adreian Payne and those players will need to be on top of their games for the Spartans to get far in the tournament. The team is going to matchup with the winner of Cincy Harvard and that game has been close and now MSU will be looking to get past Delaware and a matchup with Villanova or Virginia could be looming depending on how things play out.
Virginia comes in as the number one seed in the bracket for Michigan State and they have been one of the best defensive teams in the nation and they ranked first in the regular season in points allowed per game and that will be a factor for the Cavs in the tournament. Michigan State has to worry about playing against Memphis, GW or Virginia and in the 16 and one matchup it's Coastal Carolina trying to knock them off. Harris was the leading scorer over Payne during the season and he is expected to play well again and Dawson was the top rebounder and he comes in after being the Big Ten tournament MVP. Michigan State beat rival Michigan for the title and that must have been sweet after the Wolverines won the regular season title for the Big Ten.
The team finished third in the regular season standings behind Michigan and Wisconsin and now they are hoping to get ahead of both of those teams in the NCAA tournament this year. Michigan has won championships under Izzo and now he has the chance to add another one and after the rough end to the season for the team, they have the chance to continue their strong play out of the conference tournament. The team won three games to get the conference title and to end the season they lost against Ohio State and down the back stretch they had seven losses and six of those were to Big Ten teams at the time.
Michigan State had lost to the Wolverines twice in the season before beating them handily in the Big Ten title games and now they are hoping that strong play carries over into the postseason for the NCAA tourney. Michigan State comes into the game averaging over 75 points and they were in the top 10 in assists per game and they were ranked in the top 35 in field goal percentage and they will need to continue being that efficient to have a good run here.
Check here for the Michigan State and Delaware radio stream.
