More Minnesota Post Game

Spartans everywhere are still feeling really good about that win on the road against the Minnesota. The Spartans played nearly flawless and are starting conference play on the right foot. Can they keep this up? Only time will tell.

More Game Notes:
1. Game time change. I love how the Gophers changed the time of the basketball game so that fans could watch the Insight Bowl. I knew that the time was changed recently, but didn't know why until they announced it on the broadcast. Way to play the game at 11 AM local time. That's like AAU ball. Maybe they ran it back with U of M -Duluth right after.
2. The other Smith. Did anyone else notice Sal Smith as a Minnesota assisstant coach? Can this guy do anything without his dad helping him? George W. thinks thinks Sal Smith is ridiculous.
3. I overlooked Al Nolen. In my preview of the Minnesota game, I ignored Al Nolen who clearly looks to be the leader of this team. He has a balanced game and leads the Gophers in both assists and steals. If he stays all four years at Minnesota, he could be a first team all conference player.

Related Michigan State News:

MSU football gets beat by Georgia 24-12. In the end, I was happy with the Spartans' effort. They played hard and made the final score respectable. I would have predicted a much more lopsided loss and we should be happy that it turned out to be a close game. The truth of the matter is, however, that Georgia did everything they could to give us this game. They made three key turnovers but the Spartans couldn't capitalize on them. Their punter missed the ball on a punt attempt for God's sake! I've never seen that before. It was truly hilarious. Anyways, they might have gotten the dubya, but we got their mascot.

Hopefully, Coach D'Antonio will use this bowl game appearance as a stepping stone to take our program to the next level.


Mailbag:
"I'm not going to claim to know what was in Izzo's head, but I'm pretty sure he was playing because he's a good basketball player and Izzo thought having him on the court would help the team. Keep in mind, this kid is the all-time point scorer in Minnesota history. That's pretty impressive. Obviously, he has some skills. I highly doubt that Izzo put him in just because he's from Minnesota."
-Steve from Gladwin

I have received a lot of flack regarding my comments on Isaiah Dahlman. Let me just say, I don't have anything against the guy personally. He seems like a great kid who tries really hard. He just lacks the talent necessary to play in the Big Ten. It's that plain and simple.

Secondly, I wanted to address this "all-time point scorer in Minnesota [High School] history" business one more time. Like I have said previously, Isaiah is no longer Minnesota's career scoring leader. That record was broken early in 2008 by a guy named Cody Shilling. Do you know where he ended up? Not Duke, Carolina, or even Minnesota for that matter. Augustana College. A DII school! Is that "pretty impressive"?

Dahlman should have transferred early this year when he saw Thornton playing ahead of him. I think the players are about equal as far as talent goes, but Thornton has more elgibility and therefore, more potential to contribute in the future.

Side Note: The Michigan High School basketball career scoring leader is Jay Smith from Mio (1979). Smith most notably was the Central Michigan head coach from 1997-2006. He is currently an assistant at the Univ. of Detroit for Ray McCallum.

Tomorrow: Northwestern Preview

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