It's Basketball Season!!

This past weekend is the first game of the basketball season. It is just an exhibition game but it was fun to watch the guys play on court again! We are picked as the nation's #2 team by the pre-season coaches' poll. Everyone is excited that our team is looking good and we still have our key players along with two awesome freshman...but....read on.

I was already excited about the basketball season starting from the Midnight Madness held back in October. The basketball players are only allowed to officially practice with the coach approximately a month or so before the season officially begins. Midnight Madness is to celebrate the day the official practice begins for the Spartans. Similar to last year, they have a skit, performance by the MSU Dance Team and Cheerleading Team followed by a short scrimmage starting at midnight. This year, Coach Izzo went as an Indy car racer. Ever since we went to the Final Four, they have yet to put up the banner for it so they did it this year. In fact, they made new banners for all the Final Fours that we went under Coach Izzo. This year's Midnight Madness also broke record as they had a full attendance at Breslin Center. Fans who went in late were turned away because they had reached full capacity. Isn't it crazy? Well, we are the nation's #2 team!!

After the Midnight Madness, there was another basketball event - Green vs White Scrimmage. It was held on the same day our football team played against Iowa. This was when I got an autograph from Coach Izzo and had Chris Allen to sign on the basketball jersey that Pei bought for me!!!

This year, the Izzones (the student section) organized a really nice tour of the men's basketball locker room and open practice. It is interesting to see how Coach Izzo have each of them work on different aspects of the game and after watching a full court practice, I think that these guys are awesome! Wonder how NBA practice is like..hehe.

Trophies at the lounge area by the main entrance of the basketball office.

At the office area, they have action shots of the basketball players all along the walls. Here is a wall with all the Spartans in NBA. Suton is the most recent one who was drafted to NBA for Utah Jazz but end up not being selected to play. In the recent Lakers vs Mavericks game, a Spartan alumni, Shannon Brown did an awesome dunk right as the shot clock goes off. 很美的灌籃!!

Then there is the wall with this season's players.

Their lecture room.

The practice court with all the banners from when the Spartans participated in the Final Fours, with the most recent one last season in Detroit. We will make it to Indianapolis this season!

Here comes the one everyone would love to see....their super chun locker room!

with comfy chairs in front of a large wall mount HD TV!

Our awesome players practicing hard.

And we get to pick up our Izzone T-shirt.

Finally, a recap of Sunday's game.

It is a good thing that exhibition games don't count because we have 2 key players injured and coincidentally, it is Pei and my favorite player! #2 Raymar Morgan and #3 Chris Allen! The game started out pretty slow. We scored a 4 point in the first 2 minutes and then the game went without any score for the next 5 minutes or so. While we won Northwood easily, the scores were pretty close during the first half. We lost another key player, #10 Delvon Roe early in the game due to some injury.

While we didn't play very well, I felt that Northwood was pretty rough out there on the court. Our players were on the floor half of the time! They seem to enjoy jumping out and bumping into anyone who tries to shoot from below the hoop. Geezz!! Our point guard, #1 Kalin Lucas certainly did not have a good day as he kept missing his shots but did managed to be the top 2nd scorer, just 1 score less than Summers. Our shooting guard, #15 Durrell Summers gave an awesome play today, making several awesome dunk. Unfortunately, with a few minutes more to go, he fell and had to leave the court. He was limping as he walks out. I hope it is not too bad because we already have Morgan and Allen down. Everyone is looking forward to see the entire basketball team healthy and yet, injuries happened before the first game. Poor Morgan, he needs some health potion or "unlimited mana". Hehe.

One surprise from this exhibition game - our new freshman center, #50 Derrick Nix can shoot! He scored us 13 points tonight! I like the shot below - Lucas (#1) and Nix (#50) both with the same points at one point of the game. :P Hopefully that all the guys will be back healthy when we play against Florida Gulf Coast.

I just love basketball season!! Pei, 我好想念妳喔!! 沒有你在, 我要跟誰談籃球呢?