March Madness

Wow, it's time for the March Madness here around Minnesota State as many of our winter sports seasons are entering the playoff run. 

The Minnesota State men's basketball team opens the 2010 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament tonight as the #1 seed and entertains Southwest Minnesota State, the #8 seed.

Chad Courrier of the Mankato Free Press wrote a great piece in today's paper about Minnesota State senior guard Jesse Clark and former Maverick great Gene Glynn (1976-80), which can be found here.  Clark currently sits second on the school's all-time assists list with 520, while Glynn holds the school record for assists with 760.  Both are the only two players in school history to surpass the 500-assist barrier.

To get a different perspective of the game, click here, as the Marshall Independent looks into this do-or-die game for the Mustangs.

The Maverick's women's team is traveling to St. Paul today for its opening round game of the NSIC/Sanford Health tournament.  This is a rematch of last year's opening round game, only the roles are reversed.  Concordia owns the #1 seed in this year's tournament, while MSU is #8.  Last year, the Mavericks - who were the #1 seed - fell to Concordia - who was the #8 seed - 86-77.

To view either game tonight, log onto www.pennatlantic.com and you can view it for free.  For those who wish to follow the livestats, they can follow the men's game here and the women's game here.

As some tournaments are beginning, two tournaments which recently completed found a former Maverick and a current Maverick with medals around their necks.  Former Maverick David Backes - now of the St. Louis Blues - and his American teammates came home with a silver medal from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in men's ice hockey.  As most know by now, Canada bested the USA in what some are calling one of the best hockey games ever, Sunday afternoon, 3-2 in overtime. 

Current Maverick forward, junior Nina Tikkinen earned the Bronze Medal as Norway beat Sweden, 3-2 last Thursday in women's ice hockey.  The following day, Tikkinen rejoined the Mavericks as they played Minnesota in the first round of the WCHA playoffs. 

Tuesday, MSU hosted a press conference with Tikkinen and head women's hockey coach Eric Means and the bronze medal was on display.  To read Shane Frederick's story on the press conference, click here and here.

I got a chance to hold the medal and I didn't really realize how big it was till I put it in my paw:

In the words of Porky the Pig from Loney Tunes....