Hey Michigan State, Take a Chill Pill Following Sunday Loss
Sunday was one of the best days for Mississippi State Bulldog fans as far as Women’s Basketball is concerned. A 74-72 victory over Michigan State and the second-ever trip to the Sweet 16 to face off against UConn. After the jubilation was over, and the teams both went their separate ways following the game, I guess Michigan State couldn’t help but complain about them not being able to host the three games. And this is where everything starts up. Monday morning, the East Lansing-based Lansing State Journal released an article titled “Couch: Nothing fair about NCAA Tourney experience for Spartan women.” Now at first glance, you would have thought it was just an opinion piece written by the sports editor defending the team. Well that’s where you would be wrong. In fact, the Michigan State head coach Suzy Merchant went on a nice little rant about how unfair the conditions were at the Hump.
Their first complaint was that they were the 4-seed and should have hosted over Mississippi State who was the 5-seed in the tournament. Now this is a viable gripe with the system, but let’s go on to the reason why the Spartans had to travel to Starkville for the games instead of hosting them. The reason was simple: the Michigan State arena, the Breslin Center, was already being used this past weekend for the Michigan High School Athletic Association to host the state girl’s basketball tournament. Their next viable option would have been Jemison Field House, but there wasn’t a useful court available according to the Michigan State Athletic Director.
Their next complaint was that shots were falling for the Bulldogs that wouldn’t have fallen at the Breslin Center. Well that takes us back to problem number one that they stated, and the problem is truly their own fault on that. Also, I seriously don’t think that the Michigan State lines and goals are much different than the ones at Mississippi State. So their argument of “those shots wouldn’t have fallen at the Breslin Center” are null and void. Now let’s move on to the next one.
The officials missed a call where they allege a Bulldog player’s foot was out of bounds when she rebounded a ball with three seconds left on the clock. The officials missed this call and the game went on to end. Merchant was pleading with officials to review the call, which the officials just shrugged off and called the game. Well here’s the reason why they just shrugged it off: The play is not reviewable according to NCAA rules. So even if they wanted to review it, they couldn’t due to NCAA rules.
Then they were complaining about how far they had to stay from Starkville in their hotel. They stayed 30 minutes from Starkville in Columbus, which many Mississippi State fans have driven too many times before. Well they said that since we didn’t have hotels that were unbooked close enough to the stadium, that we shouldn’t have been able to host. Well here’s the reason for them not being able to host: the 40th Annual National Landscape Competition was being hosted at Mississippi State University, and the closest hotels were all booked up by those participating in the event. But here’s the best part, Michigan State participated in this event and even WON the event. But it’s okay, Coach Merchant, I’m sure you could have taken the hotel rooms from your National Champions since you’re complaining so much!
They also complained about how bad the acoustics were in the Hump. Here’s my response to this, ARE YOU SERIOUS??? You’re going to use the “It was too loud” excuse in a basketball game? Wow…just wow. In a basketball game, the home team is supposed to have a loud crowd. But guess what, Coach, if your crowd would have been halfway loud, they would have made an impact too. The Hump is designed for a small crowd to sound particularly loud. So once again, sit down and prepare for next season, Coach. Heck…maybe I’ll send you a cowbell so that when you’re feeling angry you can make your office too loud for others to concentrate.