With the Big Ten regular-season coming to a close last weekend, the Michigan State Spartans and the six other member teams of the conference headed to Notre Dame for the Big Ten Tournament. The Spartans are coming off a tough series against the Wisconsin Badgers at Munn Ice Arena in East Lansing, and they are now preparing for the Tournament, beginning with a matchup with the Minnesota Golden Gophers this afternoon at 4 P.M. EST. Head Coach Danton Cole and Tommy Apap addressed the media, Wednesday and Friday, respectively, reflecting on the season and looking forward to their competition tonight.

Cole started with an opening statement. “Tough series (against Wisconsin), a couple of well-played games… both teams played really well. Focusing on us, I think there were a number of things we did well and we are going to continue to do moving forward, playing Minnesota. They are a very similar team, dangerous lineup, their defenseman are as good as any d-core in the country, and their goaltender (Jack LaFontaine) has had an outstanding season. It’s a big challenge, some of the things we did well Saturday night we will do well again, apply some pressure, play hard and get ready for Sunday afternoon.”

He noted that in Saturday’s game against Wisconsin, they didn’t wait for the game to approach them. “One thing I liked is that we didn’t wait for the game to come at us, and we applied a little bit of pressure, a little proactive, got more pucks on net, much better job coming through the neutral zone, playing behind their defense, and it leveled the playing field. We have to play a certain way, and it has been a weird year, psychologically and physically, and sometimes it’s not the evenest of roads. When we play a certain way, we are a tough team to play against and that’s applying pressure and going forward. If we can do those things, we think we can play with anybody in the country.”

Cole said that this year’s Big Ten Tournament format is interesting, and he gave credit to not only Michigan State and the Big Ten, but all of the NCAA for being able to put together a season for college athletes despite the craziness of this season.

Looking at how the Spartans fared against the Golden Gophers this year, they were significantly outscored in the first period. “They’re a deep, talented team and they play hard, you have to be ready every shift. I was particularly looking at the last game we played against them, going in there, The first ten minutes we weren’t bad and then we got caught on some bad pinches and some lapses, and if anything, that teaches you that when you play teams like that and you have a lapse, they are going to take advantage of them, and Minnesota is that type of team. We talk to the guys about winning their shifts and that’ll be important. We’ve been able to scrap our way into some games, but we had to battle back.”

Michigan State has had a strong penalty kill this year, but that starts with taking “careless penalties”. With Minnesota having a 20.5% power-play this season, the Spartans need to be careful. “That’s obviously the first thing, not taking those unnecessary penalties behind the play and in the offensive zone and careless ones. That’s the first step, not to be in the box and go from there. In terms of penalty killing, they run a lot of nice stuff, they have guys who shoot, they have guys that will make plays near the net, so you have to cover that and have a plan.”

Both Drew DeRidder and Pierce Charleson have played recently, and there is definitely a question for the Michigan State coaching staff ahead of tonight’s game in the Big Ten Tournament. “If we could play them both at the same time that’d be good, but the rules of the game make us play one. I like a little competition. Drew’s carried the mail and does a great job, Pierce has come in and spelled him and done very well and in his starts, he’s done very well. We’ve got a decision to make and we’ll have that later on. I think it’s a healthy thing. Drew has handled it well, Pierce has handled it outstandingly well all year.”

Tommy Apap said that the team is ready to go into the Big Ten Tournament. “First of all, we are definitely excited to shock some people, the tournament is set up nicely for us. Obviously, our chances wouldn’t be as high if we had to play Minnesota three times, but we have them once. Any positives we can take out of this season, we pulled some momentum out of our last game against Wisconsin and we’ve had some confidence, we’ve created a lot more opportunities than we have been in the past, we have to capitalize on those opportunities, but we’re excited to play this weekend. It’s three games, but you have to play them one at a time. We have to beat Minnesota on Sunday if you want to get to Monday and so forth, so we’re definitely excited about the opportunity we have in front of us.”

Just like the Men’s Basketball team is headed to March Madness, Apap thinks that they can make some noise using some of the Spartan momenta in the month of March. “We’re hopefully going to take some of that Izzo “March Magic” and bring it over to the hockey squad. It’s March, anything can happen, it’s one game at a time and basketball is big-time upsets all the time, and we are looking to upset not just one team, but three teams and we want to win that tournament. There’s been a lot of ups and downs this year and we are struggling to score as of late, but we were creating chances against one of the best teams in the country (in Wisconsin), and this week we are working on capitalizing on the opportunities. One thing we want to do with Minnesota is take away their time and space and we recognize how good of a team they are, and if we take away their time and space hopefully they can’t create a lot for themselves.”

There is a little difference in the way Michigan State is preparing for the Big Ten Tournament as since it is single-game elimination, they are looking at it as a better chance to compete and make a run.

Michigan State begins their run in the Big Ten Tournament at 4 P.M. EST today against the Minnesota Golden Gophers on the Big Ten Network (BTN). The rest of the schedule including the times of the semifinals and finals can be found here.

SEF