Basketball Champion

Basketball fever is over! After the regular season and Big Ten Tournament basketball, Ping got her wish to see more of Spartans when they just kept going stronger as they went further into the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) tournament.

Basketball for Ping started way back in high school when Ping watched CS and gang played at the court near his house after school. At that time it was more to hang out with the gang rather than to watch basketball. Ping did not start appreciating the game until in college when the Sunway guys all played in the college tournament.

For MSU basketball, Ping was introduced to it during her first year, by Uri, who at that time, had the student season tickets. It was always fun to hear him talk about the games and one day, Ping was granted the opportunity to go watch it herself when Tom gave her tickets to one of the game. Ping went with Brian who explained all the culture of watching basketball game at the Breslin center. Then came a few more tickets from Tom whenever he and his sons couldn't make it to the game...
Eventually, Ping got caught up with the game. Ping finally got the chance to get season tickets when Ping met ah Pei who was excited about basketball game as Ping!!
13 home games! Ping didn't miss any of them at all! Almost missed the last one when Pei went to Disneyworld but was glad Ping end up finding someone to go with! Hehe...super loyal lehhhh. Even the away games, Ping only missed 2 of them while they were playing the Old Spice tournament.

From these regular season game, they are placed in seeds (some sort of ranking with complicating statistics) to play in the Big Ten tournament. The Big Ten tournament is a competition among all the Big Ten schools (which really has 11 schools). In the United States, the sports team of all the division I schools are separated according to the region the college is located. The Big Ten schools are division I colleges in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Depending on the outcome of the Big Ten tournament, the schools will be seeded along with all the other division I schools in the US to determine their seed in the NCAA tournament. Hence, the Big Ten tournament is analogous to Majlis Sukan Daerah while NCAA tournament is analogous to Majlis Sukan Negara in Malaysia. (Although Ping might be totally off since Ping never did pay attention to those stuff back in high school and have not paid any attention to it since Ping left high school).

This year, we lost to Ohio State in the semi-final of the Big Ten tournament, we are still considered the Big Ten champion because we won the most game within the conference (2 more than the runner-up). The outcome of the Big Ten tournament had put us as the #2 seed, playing against Robert Morris in the first round of the NCAA games. While Ping had wanted them to play really well and go far in the tournament, Ping didn't thought it would happen because we were so inconsistent in our games all season. BUT, the guys did show their true color and played very well, bringing Spartans to play in the National Championship game.

Unfortunately, we lost to U-North Carolina. It wasn't a bad thing though because the seniors played their heart out and it was a good game. UNC was just way better than us. But, Ping believe that MSU will be part of the Final Four again next year as we still have most of our great players - Delvon Roe, Kalin Lucas, Raymar Morgan, Durrell Summers, Korie Lucious and maybe even Chris Allen if he plays more consistent. Ping is just proud to see her school played in the championship game! While some people see it as a disappointing lost, Ping sees it as an improvement - they lost by 35 points when they last played UNC in Dec 08 for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. This time, they only lost by 17 points to UNC. They pulled it closer by half!! If you don't call that an improvement, then you are probably one of those who watch basketball for the sake of seeing 3-point shots.

Ping will miss watching basketball in the summer as it was fun times watching it with Lin and talking basketball with the guys on the floor and all the people Ping have met because of basketball...but, it is Spring time!! There are lots more fun stuff to do outside!!!

Haha, Ping's wardrobe also acquired two new shirt because of basketball.
The white Izzone shirt came along with the season tickets. Izzone represents the student session that cheers at the basketball games. The name is from MSU's basketball coach - Tom Izzo -'s last name. Their slogan this year is "The definition of home court advantage" - known for the intimidating atmosphere that the Izzones bring, making Breslin Center one of the most challenging place to play. The dark green shirt is one that Ping bought when we won the Elite 8 to join the Final Four game.