Well, hello, good eating everybody. It's Tuesday, March twenty six,
twenty twenty four. Welcome to the only show about Spartan Dogs hosted by Spartan
Dogs. This is Spartan MSU and I'm the host, Jason Strayhorn, along
with my co hosts Cedric Swervings. If this is your first time, we
want to welcome you to the show. We're gonna be in for a little
treat today. If this is not your first time, thank you for your
loyalty. We really appreciate you all more than you know. And please don't
forget to click that life and Subscribe button. It helps us a whole lot.
We just need that and don't forget. You know, hey, look
head over to this is parta dot com for any of your year. Yes,
sir, you know, so you'd be like swerve about he got something
coming. You can be close to me. It can't beat me. You
can be hey scrabb watching that intro, Man, I love the intro,
but you know what, Yeah about that turf we had to play on?
Man, that was nasty, wasn't that? Yeah? I did look at
the night turf grands they got. Now then I can't wait till we have
plas to go on because I want to ask them, how did you run
rats in them big ass rebox shoes we had to play in? Man,
God, this is what I'm saying. We set the foundation for this new
generation. Hold on, you heard that, foundation for the new generation.
Bars? You've got bars, straight bars. And then we got to call
up Diddy. Maybe not maybe you call him. This is too soon.
I don't know what's going on with that as of right now, because but
look, hey man, yeah, that that that is something I do get
a little jealous of. I think when I see that turf that they have
now versus what we that's ship man. I mean, did your joints used
to hurt? Didn't you? Afterwards? After we played a practice on that?
You know that The worst part though, when you got when you got
skinned up, oh man, and that that that red colored beater, Oh
that was. Now. These guys they got a little sleeve they put on
the protected we are that. Hey, you knew about them little skid skinning
things on you when you would get in the shower hollering won't not just that
though, straight Because people don't understand the locker room. Remember our locker it
was like high school lockers. Yeah. Now they got the chair that go
back and they put their head up. They got to that. You can
put your hammer in, somebody can warm your helmet, your shoulder pass.
Come on, man, they living. Man. I don't like it.
I ain't happy for him. You don't like the fac they do like that.
It's too needy and they still want this and complaining about that. Now,
that is a big problem. You can't have no entitlement, you know
when they get it like they got it, man, because they we had
and I mean towards the end, they ended up getting the new locker.
I mean, but but does the generation before us feel like that about us?
That's the thing straight we had to take. They had me down in
the stadium. This generation. Yeah, our generation is still bumping gun with
the old the generation before us. Yeah, but this new generation everything is
handed to him. Ah, give it to them. No, we had
to grind. Yeah, oh yeah, well everybody got a choice to grind,
you know. I mean from parental standpoint, I want to know if
the new coach is gonna walk from Kellogg's or they gonna get to push scooters.
Yeah, but I need to talk to code y'all listen where y'all gonna
walk? Or are y'all too cute to walk? Push scooters? The ones
that's all over campus happening? Why not straight? They got everything else?
Right, that's a deal they get, they got everything else. I gotta
walk to the Stadiumine, I would transfer, you're gonna do what? What?
Yeah? I can't heart kids saying that. Oh you know what.
I don't want to walk to this. I want to be like Clemson,
get off the bus and and just go right there. Then we took pride
in that walk. Yeah we did, Yes, I remember we used to
walk. It's always this lady man. She always made the chocolate chip cookie.
Yeah, she would be righted there giving him chocolate chip cookie. I
missed that lady. She was so nice. She was nice. I remember
that my man that used to rub the ball had the ball out there the
whole night, right. Yeah. I still see him from time to time
in the parking lot. Yeah, he out there. But you know what
I thought, You know, I thought that was Now. I ain't gonna
say clever, but remember is Michigan week, right, and how people used
to sleep out there by the the spartan. I couldn't believe that, man,
Why I just couldn't. You know what I'm saying. I mean that
take a whole lot of pride within your school and and love within your school
to sleep outside the statue and knowing that it's rivalry week, that somebody will
do, you know what I mean, Just like down in Alabama when dude
took the tree from Marben but the tree down, dude went to jail,
you know what I'm saying. So they killed a year old tree something like
that. Yeah, I saw that as a freshman man and people out there,
I was I was amazed. Man. That makes you feel a sense
of pride, you know, coming from Miami, Florida, is that is
that that was something that was foreign to you. Right to see somebody that
had that kind of pride, right, and it changed my mindset because at
the time, you know, I'm a freshman. I don't really know.
Now I'm just really just doing me. But to see that, I saw
that, like you know what, that's pride in your school. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying. Some but just a fan, just a regular
students getting together and the spartan the mask here. I mean, he led
the way, but to see those people out there doing that. Man,
I just thought that was that was amazing. I mean, and then I
know, you know because you obviously talked to my team a lot, and
you know this just from being around the program. I mean, they stand
outside and they camp outside for Spartan basketball tickets. Rather the students do.
The ninety four goes out there and sleeps with them every year easily. I
mean, I can see is doing that. Man's down the coach. Man,
Yeah, is that something you would do? Man? Would you sleep
outside with the with the fans? Hm? Did you get stuck? Uh?
You was gonna have to breathe? I guess not. That's a note.
I can't do it. I can't do it now. I'm not no
woods outside type of person. Put me in the house. I see the
thing. When y'all come inside, I ain't doing this. I'm doing this.
Come on inside with me. I'll be here wait, you know you
man, Hey, man, look, we got to get into it because
it happened over the weekends where you both Mischigan State men's and women's drank number
nine went into a battle against North Carolina. You know, the men in
the second round, the girls and the women in the first and the men
lose a tough one man eighty five to sixty nine. And the women they
dropped their game. It was a close one there because they came back within
I think it was two points at the end of the game, but lose
to North Carolina fifty nine to fifty six. Swear, what do you think
about? You know, the men's game. First of all, Like when
you look back at that game, I know everybody was on text, message
groups, chats, all kinds of stuff during that game, if not literally
in person on some stuff. But you know, how did you watch the
game? First of all? And then you know, how'd you feel the
win? So when I watched my basketball game straight and especially inzo time,
I'm by myself, right, and I'm gonna tell you this. We went
four minutes and thirty four minutes and thirty something second without get in a basket
in the first half. Yeah, we was up right, So four minutes
without get in the basket, right, And then also just watching the game,
North Carolina got some easy layers back door, right, and then in
the second half, the big the bigs out HUSSI bigs, Yeah, you
know what I mean. And then they made the shots. They they got
hot from three point in the second half and they got they kept when they
got the momentum. It was over when they came back. But you know,
twenty five big Duke pad the big first half. The guard was hort
at the beginning. You know, we just we just can't sustained and finished.
I know, you look, you look at the Spartans, you know,
and they're they're total. When you look at the box, when Tyson
Walker had twenty four, as he normally does in Elite, seemed like he
bought. I mean he had, he had seventeen points and nine boards.
It's just that, you know, there was some things now aj holguard,
point guard that you count on. It's just tough for the senior in that
moment. I mean, he comes away with three points and three boards on
the day on the evening, and it's just you know, not to single
anybody out, but it just seemed like this team, you know, had
a lot of obviously top five ranked team in the preseason, but kind of
underperformed, you know, during the season because of like you just described,
not hitting shots and then you know, defensive breakdowns at times. But when
you look at the future and guys players like Xavier Booker. I mean,
what do you think about Michigan State as they kind of regroup from this and
try to get back to where they typically go to go deeper into next year's
tournament run, you know, even at basketball as a whole, like right
now, like if you watched the draft this year, I don't see a
big name that had a big college season this year for me to say,
Okay, he came from powerhouse school, or I can't name five or ten
like for show lottery picks. So what I'm saying is I think basketball as
you see like Kentucky getting knocked out, I just think it as a whole,
is even you know what I mean, it's really no you know,
even though Duke may have the most five stars them in Kentucky, but those
guys not proven yet. So the answer your question is, I'm hoping that
the young guys that we got, you know, because there's three ways you
learn in life, watching, listening, and doing. If those guys sat
back on that bench of the lack of playing time that they have, did
they did they did they really learn something to come out and perform and take
them from a you know, just not a thirty two to a sixteen or
to a finite or whatever it may be. That's gonna be the key,
right, you know what I mean? Did a young guys learn for anything
from this past season where we can stay in the top five or stay in
the top ten, battle into big ten comforts and then get ready for the
tournament and fight. Yeah, we do we have that superstar player. I
don't think we have it, you know, so as a group, we
gotta find a way to get it done collectively. And why do you think
that is you have a program in Mischigan State, especially with a Hall of
Fame coach like Tom Izzo, you would think that Misigan State can get any
player they want. Like It's just you know, there's been a lot of
talk about Izo and his reluctions getting to the portal to find pieces, you
know, since he did that with both Joey Hawser and Tyson Walker. But
now, you know, do you think that he says, all right,
look, you know it's time for me to go portal hopping or shopping or
is it something that you know, maybe he needs to change the style of
player that he's looking for. I mean, you know, you have fear
that's coming back next year after the injury to shoot being shot. But you
know there's there's some pieces there, but you know, you're always looking for
that one thing, and everybody wants to know about the big man s.
You gotta go into portal, yeah, because it's just like I saw a
sports analysts say the other day, these freshmen's not getting it done. They're
not they're not they're not ready to compete in basketball with these guys that's juniors
and seniors, even red shirt and juniors and seniors, you know what I
mean, guys that been there. So you're not getting the elite guys.
So if I'm not getting the elite guy, that freshman that's ready to come
in and do it, now, I gotta go in the port and hope
I can get a guy that because if you're in the portal, you get
a chance. Now. You got to be hungry. That's how coach is
thinking. You know the reason why you're in the portal, you know what
I mean. So if I get you out that portal, you know you
gotta be hungry. Yeah, you got to play with some kind of desire
and determination. That's different because it's a reason why you was there. You
know what I mean, All of it ain't money. Some people just busted
out because you're either not playing or you weren't good enough or whatever it may
be. You know what I mean. Everything ain't in the portal, not
by money. You know I'm saying being in the portal, I'm gonna give
it a shot. Oh they ain't played me or I ain't get the opportunity
is a reason even when we go if if coach go into portal, we
gotta find the right guy out of the port Yeah, good point, good
point. Yeah you need to find So yeah, it's a Goales portal shopping
this year to try to get to where he was this year. You know,
I think that you know, when you look at the overall body of
work, you know, the consistency out of time and so it's just something
that's amazing. You know, twenty six years in a row, even in
a down yere like this, it's still not what I mean. This ain't
bad, you know what I mean. Twenty wins and some great acquired one
victories along in the year. But you know, obviously I always want more.
But what do you say about time and his ability to adapt and state
consistent through over a quarter century. That's the key word, mister consistency,
you know what I mean. He find a way, you know, he
gets those guys that play the type of ball that he wants to be played,
you know, and and it just so happened. You gotta think,
you know, but you also got to have the Jimmy and the Joels.
Now, you gotta have them. You know. I can come in,
I can I can preach discipline, I can preach toughness, I can show
you the excess and O. But if you ain't got it in your heart
to go out there and compete, hey, well it's gonna be alone.
It's gonna be a long season. And that's why we had the ups and
down because we really have that that dog, that dog that you can just
count on and either lift some people up, make that big play, or
just be that player that you go to. You know. That's why you
gotta do it by committee. And we got to find those pieces. Yeah,
like the championship team, I mean you were there two thousand, you
knew the players very well, and you talk about it a lot. What
you talk about there's no star players there. I mean, there was a
lot of stars on that team. You know it was Yeah, he had
some great players who played a long time in the NBA. But but you
know, it seemed like the whole team had its own little, you know,
piece of stardom if you would, especially like the first six players.
But you got to think with that team, you had a leader within my
team Cleves. Yeah, like a born leader who played with passion, you
know, who pull that guy inside and get in his face, you know
what I mean. And at the end of the day, they respected him,
and he did. He earned it respect. He played with his heart,
He played hurt, you know what I mean. He talked trash,
he practiced hard. So if you got a guy like that and he's speaking
the right stuff and he's showing you too shit, I'm gonna follow that.
And everything just came into place. And they had the right pieces, you
know what I mean. You had a Peterson in in Nicole. You had
to down the guys the threes in the for and then you had the general
get in there and also hit his shot too, and then to play some
defense. But then if you did play defensive, you got somebody to get
in your face. I don't see that. I don't see that when we
call a time out, that guy that's getting the team together, and I
don't see it. So if you ain't got no leader, you got a
bunch of followers following each other, you're gonna be out like we was out.
Yeah, hey, that's great points where you know, Hey, listen,
that was a great team a moment in time. You talk. Everybody
talks about the flint stones and everything, but it was different. You know.
I didn't realize like how long it was going to be until you saw
a team like that. You know, I didn't realize how rare that collective
group of guys really really was. And I'm glad to have been able to
witness that, but also happy to know those guys, you know, swerve,
I'm gonna tell you that's the key there. Brother, I'm telling you,
I look back at it. Man, you look at a guy like
you know, I'm always saying, Mateen Klee because he was the general.
You know, he was the guy that put put the people in the right
place, and he got the ball to the people in the right places,
and they followed him. Yeah, I mean, but he was the guy
to be followed because, like I said, he played with heart you know,
he talked his talk and he backed it up and he did it.
He was consistent with it. So you had a general on the floor that
was leading away. And then we had the pieces in places. You know
what I'm saying them guys, just oh, if you didn't, if you
didn't, if you didn't beat them at the beginning, by twenty, just
take the game away. You was in trouble. Yeah, he was gonna
find a way to win. And then you gotta think since then we haven't
won. We knocked on the door Final four here, you know, lead
aid this nibboom boom. But while we never got over the hump since mateen
Cleeve's we find cle But we had a three, we had a full,
we had the Valentine's, we had where but we never found us another mateen
clee mm hm. Think about it. Those are hard to find, you
know what I'm saying. Think about We done had some big we had Draymond
Greens of the world, you know, but we haven't had that with tem
Cleeve. That that to get a job done. And I ain't being biased
because you know, but that's how I look at it. Yeah, I
would have liked to see the team that got locked out because of COVID make
it into the playoffs. They're playing pretty good at that time, but we
won't ever know that. But what we do know is that we had a
special time in East Lansing over the weekend. I mean, have hosted two
Big ten championships and man came away with two victories. We're gonna talk about
that was Spartan's Illustrated its own David Harns, after these messages from my friends
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dippers for a dollar only an ihld. Well, without further ado, we
gotta have a guy over here who knows all and man had one hell of
a weekend. We got to talk about what Spartan's Illustrated's own David Harns did
this weekend while hanging out in these lands on a great beautiful weekend for Michigan
State Athletics. David, welcome to the show. Hey David, he's muted.
H Yeah, ain't nothing but a little technical Hm hmmm, uh says
that. I guess Mike isn't connected. Meanwhile, we got said got to
get the people what they want. You won't. Let's see anyway, by
the way, commercial got me going right walking through it. Talk to us
working on some technical difficulties. Like talk to us about you know, what's
going on today with the seven or seven tournament. Everybody's been talking about,
like, you know a little bit about that. You see Cam Newton involved
in. You know, people seeing Cam Newton out there, but there's a
lot of former NFL players coaching teams with seven on seven. Talk a little
bit about that and how that's helping players in high school at the high school
level. First of all, I'm fifty to fifty with seven on seven and
I say fifty to fifty because you know, it's really just for quarterbacks,
receivers and dbs. You know a lot of guys use DB's for linebackers and
you know, offense, they don't really use the true running back. But
it's a good thing for competition. And when you talk about the NFL guys,
a lot of NFL guys that sponsored teams, but you got a Cam
newtonho actually coach his team and I have a team right now that we just
wanted the championship in Battle Atlanta last week. I took it. Oh raw
yeah raw r a w you can look us up on Instagram. We wanted
the hottest teams out right now, you know we matter of fact, it's
so big strayed that April fifth, it's gonna be on the NFL network Man
seven. And one thing I can say about the seven on seven it produced
a lot of kids to get off of with these guys recording with the highlights
and things like that, the catchers and and in the sense it get like
say, our team is just not a Miami team, you know, like
our quarterback is from Texas. He's committed to TCU, you know what I
mean. So we get guys from all over bringing them together for the tournament.
And what it does is you got these guys that got seven on sevent
teams that reach out to different recruiting collegists to let them know by certain kids.
So it do help your recruiting as well. That's great. I think
we do have David Hern's back. Are you are you up? David?
I am? Can you hear me? Yeah? There you go hold on,
hold on, dag, hold on, give me a second. You
mean to tell me we got somebody from Sports Illustrated on the show Spartan Spartan,
Yeah, Illustrated Sports Spartans ad. Everybody call you Dave. You know,
I call you d I got to get my grade all the way.
I got a little dog, but you've got it all the way. It
was little sis brother, and I can say that still standing strong, you
know what I mean? Like clause Man, it works. I can't grow
it. You know, I'm a little anybody, it ain't I know any
for everybody, David, talk about your weekend. I mean, you were
in east Land scene for a couple of Big ten championships and uh, you
know, I saw a lot of it was documented on your Twitter and obviously
it's Spartans Illustrated uh dot com. But you know, we'll talk about what
it was first to see the gymnastics program pull off another Big ten championship,
this time in the tournament. Yeah, and just to back up even a
little bit more, you know, we kind of had to make a choice
as to what this and was going to look like, you know, for
for Spartans Illustrated, because the men have obviously, uh, you know,
we knew this was going to be opening weekend and that the men were going
to be somewhere else around you know, they're could be local to play,
and so, you know, was I going to go down there or were
we going to stick around for you know, we knew the women gymnastics team
was going to be playing for a championship, there was a chance that the
men hockey team might be as well. And so when it came down to
it, Kyle and Sydney from our team as well as Greg went down to
uh, North Carolina, and then myself and a couple others stuck around here,
and so I was able to go to both of those events on Saturday
night, one right after the other. Is kind of surreal actually, to
you know, be requesting credentials for two championship events on the same night in
the same city, separated you know, by you know a fifth of a
mile, if you will, like a thousand feet or something. And so,
you know, obviously, the the day started with the gymnastics. They
had two sessions over there. They had the early session, which was the
bottom six teams in the Big ten, and then the evening session was the
top four teams, and so the bottom six they kind of did their thing
and they weren't expected to challenge for the championship, and none of them really
did. But then it came time for the evening session and it was they
introduced all the gymnasts to a raucus Jennison crowd. It was packed. I
mean, the whole place was full, and there was fans from all of
the other ten universe or nine other universities that have gymnastics programs in the Big
Ten, but it was really full of Michigan State fans. And about thirty
minutes before the match, the meet, i should say started, I took
my camera and I walked around Jennison and the line was all the way down
to the baseball stadium and that was, you know, still thirty minutes before
the meat started. And so it was a hot ticket. You know,
the regionals, they are the Big Tens. They rotate around to the different
schools, and it just so happened that this was the year that Michigan State
got the host and Alan Haller and his team, you know, they really
knocked it out of the park. They had that jennisip Field House was looking
great, kind of like when I remember it as a kid watching basketball there.
I was like eight years old and remembering, you know, watching the
games there and it was kind of brought back a little bit of nostalgia there,
but it was filled with you know, lady gymnasts who were who were
doing their thing, and you know, it started out where the you know,
each of the each of the teams start on a different apparatus, right,
You've got the beam, and you've got the floor exercise, and you've
got the bars, and you've got the vault, and so Michigan State started
out on the floor. And if you're not familiar with gymnastics, you kind
of have to realize that each team kind of is better at certain events or
they get higher scores at certain events. So you can't really just keep track
of the score. Right. It's not like basketball, where like, hey,
you've got ten points, the other team has eight points, you're winning
too. Where in gymnastics, not only are they counting in decimal points,
but they're all doing different events at the same time. So you're comparing this
team's floor to that team's vault, to this team's beam to that team's bars,
and so it's a very complicated sport for those who aren't very familiar with
it. I've been covering them for about three years now, and so I've
kind of created my own little cheat sheet going in as to what I expect
the score to be after the first rotation, that whole type of thing,
what it should be after the second, and so then I can kind of
look and see, oh MSU's overperforming a little bit or underperforming. And so
you know, if all of the teams did all of their average scores,
then Michigan State was going to win. And that never happens, right,
Some people overperform, some underperform. Michigan was supposed to be the team that
was challenging MSU for the championship. They've won the last few. They've always
had a pretty decent gymnastics program. But you know Minnesota, right, Minnesota
is the one that ended up challenging. I mean yeah, And as I
was watching it, Michigan was kind of, yeah, they were doing about
their what they were supposed to do a little bit below average, but Minnesota
was really doing well, and so you know, Michigan State was kind of
keeping on pace with what it needed in order to win. But then it
got to the last rotation, and it was you know, Minnesota was there
for you know, coming for the win. Michigan they are best at the
floor exercise and they were the number four in the country at floor exercise,
so you knew that they were going to create you know, they were going
to make up some ground on that last one because Michigan State was going to
be on beam. Michigan was going to be on floor exercise. So the
idea was, Michigan State had to build up a big enough lead in the
other three events that they could withstand that last one. And so that's what
I was watching for. And so you know, when you get for those
who aren't aware gymnasts gymnastics, you put six players up and then you keep
the time five scores. So the idea is, you know, if you
can get nine point nine for all of them, and then you get like
a nine point ninety five and that one knocks down a little lower, you
know, one of the lower scores or what have you. But what you
don't want is what happened to the Spartans their first beam when the meat was
on the line, right and they needed a really good score on beam to
win it, and their first athlete got a very bad score, a nine
point two five. If that score was going to stand, then Michigan State
there's no way they can make up that gap. So what that meant was
that there was five gymnasts left to do the beam, and all five of
them had to knock it out of the park nail their score. There was
no room for air for them, and so while Michigan was finishing up on
the floor exercise because there was a little bit of a delay, Michigan State
was one by one knocking down those those those performances. And that beam is
like the width of my phone. It's like this wide, and they're doing
all that fancy stuff on there. I don't know enough, go ahead better
A person like me with fat feet, I can't. I couldn't do it
right. I'd like to see you up there. I'd like to see you
up there on the beam. In fact, that would make I'd meet you
anywhere. You want to videotape that you let me know. Wide and fat
man like Flintstone brother, I can't like. I like to see Jason do
the vault too. So while we're at it. When I was a kid
about twelve, yeah, yeah, no, we didn't ran up to it
and stop. So so back back to the beam though, and uh,
you know, Skyla Shechlte gets up there, she does her thing. Uh
you know, a couple others do their thing. But then it comes down
to the last performance of the night and all eyes are on the beam because
all the other events had already finished, right, so the packed house is
looking to see will Michigan State get a nine point eight or so and that
will win, or if they get below a nine point eight on this then
they will not win, and Minnesota will. And so Gabby Steven gets up
there, and what people didn't know at the time was that she had cut
her foot before the event, before the night started, like a freak accident,
and so she had like a cut on her toe. And I'm gonna
be writing about this on Spartans Illustrated coming up here in the next couple days.
But she had a cut on her toe and she performed the whole night.
She did all four events with a cut bloody toe that they kept fixing
between events. And so you know, she was the one standing for MSU
for victory there at the end. And so when she did her last pass
on the beam, as I think is what they call it. The crowd
erupted and all she had to do was nail the dismount, and Michigan State
was going to win. And of course she nailed the dismount and everybody was
happy and celebrating, and then you just kind of watch the huddle, right
and they're just waiting for that score to flash up on the on the board.
And as soon as that score flashed up there, they knew that they
had enough to win. And the place just erupted and there was just you
know, confetti flying and everyone jumping around, and it was pretty epic.
Yeah, that's what's up. That's a that's a that's when you get you
get the pull, you just get Oh, it's going through my body right
now. They had a grit like she had finish and he was talking like,
you know how the movie waiting there? You might have a video,
Oh okay. Earlier in the evening, there was quite a crowd across the
three at Jennison Field House as Michigan State hosted the Big Ten Gymnastics Championships.
The Spartans won the Big Ten regular season title, but I never won the
Big Ten championship meet they hold the number. They held the number one seed
and Michigan, seeking its twenty eighth Big Ten title, was the two seed.
The Spartan's out on floor and did what they do best. Nicki Smith
was just about as close to perfect as one could get. She collects a
team high nine point nine to two five to put the Spartans in front.
Early on bar, Skyla Schulty with a beauty of a routine and she sticks
the landing. She was here all around winner today, the first Spartan to
win the all around at the conference championships. Minnesota made things very interesting,
pulling within point five headed into the final rotation. It would all come down
to the final beam routine, where Gabby Stephen has nerves of steel coming in
clutch despite slicing her toe open before the meet. She collects a nine point
eight seven five and helps MSU make history once more. They win with a
score of one ninety seven point six to zero zero. Yeah, hey for
that, that was awesome. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was.
It was. It's really it's just really impressive what they can do.
And Michigan State's gymnastics program has really arrived as well. You know, Monday,
they gathered in uh in the at Genesip Field House to watch the NCAA
Selection show, and they knew they were gonna in the field. You know,
their expectations are no longer, Hey, we got to make the NCAA
tournament. We know we need to be one of the top sixteen seeds,
and they were. They were announced as the twelve seed, which is actually
a little bit lower than what they should have been. But different the way
they do it in the in gymnastics, like Michigan is hosting a regional,
Florida was hosting a regional, and so those teams need to go into their
I think Arkansas as well. Those teams need to go into their pool,
into their little pods, and so they get the seeding gets a little messed
up for that. But the gymnastics team is a top ten team. So
they'll play April fifth and April seventh down in Gainesville, Florida. April fifth,
they've got there's four teams that go in the top two advance to move
on to Sunday. And then on Sunday there's there's gonna be four teams and
theoretically it'll be the four and the five and the twelve and the thirteen seeds
and two of those will move on to Nationals, which is down in Texas
the following weekends. So Michigan State hasn't made it to Nationals but only one
time in the program's history. That would be that would be their goal this
year. If they can do that, that would be amazing. Anything at
Nationals would be gravy. I think it would. You know, obviously everybody
wants to win the national championship, but there's some pretty impressive gymnastics teams out
there that they'd have to beat in Texas. So if they can make it
to Nationals, they will have had a very successful season. So hey,
just tell Gabby mess up the other toe too. It might be a good
luck charm. Yeah. Hey, where's the championship, the national Championship tex
I think it's in Fort Worth. Yeah, And so they're going to Gainesville,
Florida. Yep, Florida. Yeah, So they'll play there. They'll
play there on Friday Sunday. And if they advance out of that out of
the regionals, you know, only two teams advance per regional and they make
it to the Nationals and then they do the same thing there. They have
two pods of four and then the top two from each pot advance to the
to the championship on on on that the second day, you know that they
take a break and then they play again. So yeah, I mean,
Mike uh, their coaches is pretty excited. Mike Row. Yeah, he's
uh, he's a uh, he's a good interview and you know he he's
always uh, you know, talking and singing his girls praises there and he's
really built a championship culture. And the nice thing is for them, they've
got good recruits coming in next year as well, So this this isn't just
a flash in the pan. You know, they've made the n C doua
as three years in a row, they won the Big Ten regular season two
years in a row. They won the tournament this year for the first time
ever. So they're on a roll. They got some rollings. I mean,
they might have the nil collective must be the one. I want to
ask you the question because I never see being in being in Florida, I've
never seen like, we never had gymnastics team. So where do they do
to recruit from? Is it a travel team? I don't know many high
schools that have Jim Nasty as a sport. Yeah, I got to admit,
you know, I've I've started covering gymnastics in the last three years.
I've yet to get digging into the recruiting. You know, obviously Rivals doesn't
have a big recruiting you know, database for gymnasts yet, but but that
information is out there. I know that Mike is you know, he looks
everywhere and now it's not he's not having to sell his program anymore. He's
able to kind of pick and choose the athletes that he wants to come here
because we you know, Michigan State has been able to establish themselves as a
place where you know, I think they've I mean, you can't. It's
only been a couple of years, but they've They've beat Michigan three times this
year. Uh you know that in Michigan had a national championship program a few
years back, and so you know, they've Michigan State's really taken a hold
here in the Big Ten and making themselves a place where recruits are going to
want to go play. I mean, it's incredible. To your point,
you asked leusd Swerve about like where do they do it? It's a lot
of club gymnastics, I know in the Midwest area where I was born and
raised. Well, yeah, lived so many years in Michigan. It's it's
huge, man. It's just not as publicized as like, you know,
the main sports, the revenue sports, so to speak. But my goodness,
I mean from the Olympic training you know. I mean they have the
little tumblers all the way up to the Olympic training. Man, it is.
It's a big time industry. That's a good idea, David. You
talked about rankings. Maybe they should. There's got to be a ranking system
or something out there. Wow, there is, Yeah, there is.
Another website has has kind of filled in that gap, and I'm just not
familiar enough with it. I do know that they have two good recruits coming
in, and those recruits have been in the stands, you know, this
year as well. I think they were at the Big Five Meet a little
bit ago, and maybe some of them came to the Big Ten Championships as
well. But you know, it's it's just like any other program. You
need the you need the athletes to, you know, to perform, and
then you also need to coach them up. And Mike's staff does a great
job, you know, and if you ever go to a gymnastics meet,
watch the assistant coaches and what they're doing and all they're kind of you know,
doing their thing, and it's just an impressive all around, you know,
performance from all aspects of the team. Mike's talked about how he's got
an abundance of athletes this year and he can only choose six per event,
and so, you know, it's a tough choice, and a lot of
the girls are like, you know, hey, we understand you've got tough,
tough choices, but you know, make them, do them, do
what you got to do. You know, we're here to support the team.
And so it's been a good it's been a good program, you know,
and it's been a great year for him. But that was just the
beginning of Saturday night. Yeah, yeah, how did the rest of the
night go for you? Right? So, you know, the gymnastics meet
went down to the very final second, right, and then we hung around,
we did some interviews, We got you know, coach Row and we
got you know, Gabby, and we talked to Skyla and and then they
did the metal presentation and all that stuff, and then it was time to
walk across the street, across Kalamazoo Street there and I actually did this little
time lapse video and I put it up on Twitter. Me walking out the
Jennison doors, across the parking lot, across the street and into the Mount
ice Aerena doors and you know it's just a few minute walks. What's that?
Do we have that video? I'm not sure I do remember that video.
Back here in East Lansing, the fan bases have been going crazy in
anticipation of last night's Big ten Tournament hockey championship game between Michigan and Michigan State.
The storylines are straight out of a movie. Wolverines are the two time
defending tournament champions. The Spartans are the program that's made a remarkable turnaround and
now looks to wrestle the title away from the old Guard, their arch rival.
The Spartans went three to one against the Wolverines in the regular season,
and of course won the regular season conference championship, But Michigan wasted no time
setting the tone last night. Frank Nazar flutters won past Trey Augustine on the
Wolverines first shot attempt at the game. Michigan up one zero in the opening
minute, MSU answers back. Later in the period, the puck squirts out
in front. Tanner Kelly is right on the doorstep to jam at home and
tie the game. Then in the second period, the Wolverines turn it over
in their own zone and a blast from the point leads to a rebound opportunity.
Daniel Russell puts it home to give the Spartans the lead back. We
jumped at the third period, MSU clinging to a four to three lead,
Dylan Duke's shot from the point somehow finds its way in to tie the game.
They'd credit the goal to Nasar on a tip in. We had to
overtime in about fourteen minutes in Patrick gary snipe spun from the blue line and
the celebration is on. For the first time ever, the Spartans are Big
Ten Tournament champs in a wild game that lived up to every bit of the
anticipation. Okay, that was the whole game right there. We talked about
your Twitter video before, so I didn't you know followed death from that happening,
because that was a great time laps kind of video. Yeah, yeah,
no, no problem, no problem. Everybody can go to Spartans illustrated
and we've got that on the on the web page. There you can take
a look at all of the videos and pictures that we took that night,
and it's all in one article. But when we walked into or when I
walked into manaics aerena, you know, I saw the scoreboard, Michigan was
already up one zero, and I was like, go oh man, that's
that's that's a rough start. But finally got settled in, got to my
media spot, which was overflow because they had so many people there. You
know, we're usually able to get a couple, you know, reporters in,
but this time we were limited to one reporter one photographer because the place
was packed. As soon as I sat down on my seat, Michigan State
scored the equalizer, So I said, hey, you know, I'm the
good luck teram my guess, but you know, you think it when it's
one to one, you know, they go ahead and they get their their
second goal puts Michigan State in the lead, and I'm thinking, okay,
can they hold on here. Needless to say, there was a lot more
goals to be scored, and the end of the second period was pretty intense.
Michigan State was up two to one, and Michigan scored two goals within
like a minute or a minute and a half, and so they took like
a three to two lead, and so everyone was kind of, you know,
the air was let out of the building. But then with like less
than I think just a minute seven or a minute fifteen or something like that
to go, Michigan State scored to equal you know, to get the tie
there, and then with point seven seconds left in the second period, they
fired run home. The crowd was not even done cheering for the tight the
game, the goal that tied you know it at three. When Michigan State
scored and made it four to three going at the end of the second period,
they had to review that one to make sure it got in with you
know, less than a second to go, which was pretty crazy. So
my ice arena was going was going nuts, you know. And then then
Michigan quickly got an equalizer in the fourth or in the third period to tie
it up at four, and then they played the rest of the game out
no goals, and so everybody kind of looked at each other they knew what
was coming, which was you know, sudden depth overtime, and if you've
never been in a hockey arena for sudden depth overtime, that's something else.
Uh, you know, it was electric. It was every every shot was
oh, you know, like everybody was just moving, and it was the
game could end to any second, any shot, any you know, thing
in front of the net, and so, you know, the crowd was
pretty you know, pretty excited, pretty hype. And then of course,
the the final shot came, you know, right inside the blue line,
right in front of the Spartans bench. We learned after the fact that the
third string goalie you know, shouted out, you know, to to the
guy who scored it, you know, shoot it, and he he did.
He ripped it from far away and in it went, and the crowd
just erupted just you could just see it just from that end, just running
and then it just you know, cascaded all the way across over to the
student section into the band area where where I was sitting there to to kind
of take it in. And the celebration was just raucous. And I got
a little bit of video on that on our on our website as well,
you can see some of the celebration there. You know, it was it
was a pretty intense night all around. If if you take a look at
the fact that both matches, you know, the hockey game and the gymnastics
meet ended basically with the last performance of the night. You know, for
the gymnasts, it was that dismount from Gabby steven for you know, from
Michigan State Hockey. They needed that goal in overtime, and then the matches,
you know, they were over and it was in an instant and it
was drama as much as it could be. And to have that happen on
campus, you know, two hours apart from each other, maybe three hours
apart from each other, and both teams to take home, you know,
their first ever postseason championship in the Big Ten on the same night. It
was. It was a storybook, you know. And you know Alan Haller
he and his team put together that day. They knew that they had to
host it. They brought in extra people to you know, extra comms folks,
extra facility teams, you know, team members, they were they were
there in the morning, they stayed all the way till midnight. You know,
all of the people who were doing you know, just the behind the
scene work and everything to make that day happen for both of those teams and
tell you you can't get to you can't get more different sports, disparate sports
than gymnastics in hockey, right, you've got the grace and the elegance,
you know, and then you've got the rough and tumble hockey. But they
both won, you know, their their championship on the same night, and
they both had put in so much work over the last you know year,
several years to get to this point. And they both have a coach who's
turned around the program. You know, Adam Nightingale has really you know,
he's such a calm and cool, collected guy, and he's got that program
going in the right direction. And if you you know, sign up for
Spartans Illustrated you can follow along. You know, we've got Jeremy Duirre as
our hockey insider. He's always updating on the recruiting. Michigan State's hockey recruiting
is doing doing great. They're going to have a you know, this again
is not a flash in the pan. They're going to have a solid roster
for years here. And so you know, Nightingale just got rewarded with another
contract extension and so things are looking up. You know, it's a it's
not just football and basketball in Michigan State anymore. You've got championships being one
all over the place. And that's not to even talk about the tennis team.
I mean, the men's tennis team won two matches over the weekend as
well, Friday and Sunday, so they started off big ten play two and
oh so yeah, I mean, spartans illustrated. Come on over. We
try to cover, you know, as many of the sports as we can.
We can't do it all, but we sure try. O. Man,
you do a phenomenal job. A great hey man. And obviously your
ability to get from place to place in a short period of time that was
great. Thank you for being in shape so that you can make it from
getting us in over the mind as fast as you did. Man, it's
funny. As as funny as there were there were a lot of fans who
did the same thing. Uh you know, you know fans who had hockey
tickets who started off at the gymnastics me and it worked out perfectly because they
had a half an hour to make that switch over. There were some there
were some parents, I know, the Webster family had a gymnast on the
gymnast team, and then I think it was their their nephews on the hockey
team. Uh relativet somehow anyway, so they you know, you get to
see them at both of both venues, and and the fact that both teams
won. You know, I I don't think he could write it any better,
No, not at all. I wanted to how to add the party
was I was too tired. I had to get home and I had to
write it all up, and then I just crashed. I didn't get to
sleep until three am that morning. I was on the team, I know,
I know, I'm sure they were. They were definitely excited though.
And what's fun is there was a there were football players at the gymnastics meet.
You know, they were uh you know, they all support each other
and it's fun to watch that too. Yeah, nothing better than that.
You said it, And hats off to Alan Hower and his staff of putting
that on because I mean, you know, Michigan State was on display this
weekend. It sounds like from all the looks and all the reports that I
got back there, it was a phenomenal weekend and maybe they can make a
plaque about this. It is a Hallmark type of movie. It's Disney,
more Disney than Hallmark. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a
night, Dave. You got to put me in the movie day all right?
In the Yeah Ballerinas No, no, I'm sorry, beam guy,
beam a beam gymnast. That's who you're gonna be. Well, thank you
for coming on the show Man and giving us that update, David. As
always, you know, people what just where where can they find you against
Spartans Illustrated. Yep, Spartans Illustrated dot com if you also just search Spartans
Illustrated and Rivals. You know we're we're the Rivals affiliate here in town.
You know, we we do cover football, We cover basketball, We cover
all the recruiting. Got a great staff who does all of that. You
know we've got You've got Carter Elliott and David Klein and Sam Tyler on the
basketball side. We've got lots of football minds as well, including uh,
you know some of the some of the names you'll see, you know,
Matt she hands on the team and some other folks too. So come on
over Spartans Illustrated. Sign up ten bucks a month if you need a discount
code to get started. Just shoot me a note Spartan's Illustrated at gmail dot
com and I'll get you a I'll get your discount code to get going.
But we'd love to have you over there. It is gotta have it,
yeah, man, thank you so much again for joining the show. Hey,
then we'll see you see you again really soon, David, I want
to talk about here in the near future. Sounds good, Thanks, Jason,
see you around, Dave. All right, David Harn Spartan's Illustrated Swerve.
Man, that was a great weekend. I mean, you know,
obviously, you know, the basketball teams didn't perform to the level that we
would have hoped. You know. You know we talked about the women losing
too as long as as well as the men. But we did have two
bright spots with gymnastics and hockey winning on campus big ten titles. Man,
what an epic night on Saturday and winning at the end too, Yeah,
both of them. Blood the way, how Gaddy did the flip it?
She just stick you like you were stuck. You want to be stuck again.
You got us, cetera. You've been getting us all day to day.
Man, But no, I appreciate you, brother, getting on here
and making this happen. Look David harn special thanks to him as far as
illustrated, always bringing us in depth coverage of what's going on in the marketplace.
When it comes to sparking, sports Man said, any final thoughts before
we get out of here. Hey, when we come back on Thursday,
we gotta have the updates with spring football. Okay, come back. We
gotta come in with y'all. Let them know what's going on. We got
we got to we got to make some calls. We gotta get it.
We gotta get to school. We gotta get the fans what they want because
everybody's everybody's like this, everybody just you know what I'm saying. We want
to know how the spring is going, what we're looking like, what we're
looking for, you know who's doing what. Okay, so we'll we get
into the football. We'll get into the football on Thursday. Let's do that.
It's time. There's been time, right, you know. We also
have you know we're gonna cover we gotta we gotta talk a little bit about
baseball too, so special guests coming on as well as recruiting. You know,
we're gonna have somebody on the talk football, not recruiting, but football,
spring football, and also baseball, you know, because we gotta give
gotta give everybody a little love swerve, you know what I mean. And
when they're doing good, you come right to our desk. The people from
up God says, hey, we got to talk about it. Sweat Jason,
straight swerve, you gotta talk about these people. They telling us they
got we gotta talk about baseball next week on Thursday. Not next week,
just in a couple of days. So we'll see you in sweer. Hey
man, I appreciate that that was a good point. We're gonna bring that
to them. So for Cedric Irving, I'm Jason Straehorn. This is part
of ms U. Everybody, have a good night, God bless and go Grint.