Tag: Western Michigan

Michigan State Basketball beats Western Michigan behind Joey Hauser three-point barrage

Michigan State was able to defeat Western Michigan on Sunday night behind the superb shooting of Joey Hauser.

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Michigan State Basketball is now 5-0.

The Spartans knocked off Western Michigan at home on Sunday 79-61 in a game that was highly competitive until MSU was able to pull away near the end of the game behind a career night from Joey Hauser.

Hauser had a career-high 24 points and went 6/10 on his three-pointers. He also made it a double-double with 10 rebounds and also had 4assists, 2 steals, and a block in a very impressive night for the big man.

Aaron Henry also added another one of his padded stat-lines, racking up 12 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and a block. He’s still not shooting the ball well but he always pops off the screen and is clearly the best player on this team. Defensively, he might be the best player in the country. Seriously.

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Rocket Watts also added 10 points and 6 assists as his move to the point guard position continues.

Ultimately, this was another game that, like Detroit Mercy on Friday, may have been a little closer throughout much of the game than fans would like but MSU continues to be able to close these games out with great defense and some standout performances.

The Spartans have a major challenge upcoming in their next game against No. 15 Virginia.

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Notre Dame basketball home opener canceled

Notre Dame was supposed to open their home schedule of the 2020-21 men’s basketball team Wednesday but the game has been called off.

For the second time this calendar year, a Notre Dame vs. Western Michigan athletic contest has been canceled.

Back in the fall, it was the two football teams as Notre Dame joining the ACC and the MAC at the time canceling their season meant they didn’t end up playing on the gridiron.

Now in men’s basketball, the Broncos won’t be making the bus ride south from Kalamazoo on Wednesday because of a lack of available players due to COVID-19.

Notre Dame announced on Tuesday that there is no current plan to reschedule the game that was supposed to be the home opener for the Fighting Irish.

Notre Dame’s game on Friday night against Tennessee has also been canceled leaving the Irish to open the home season this coming Saturday morning against Purdue Fort Wayne.

Notre Dame is 0-1 on the young season after falling at Michigan State on Saturday night.

Mike Brey Takes to Twitter to Seek Opponent for Notre Dame

We have just over a month of 2020 to go, and it seems like we’ve seen it all.

We have just over a month of 2020 to go, and it seems like we’ve seen it all. Talk to anyone on the street, and chances are they want 2021 to get here quickly. It didn’t seem possible for things to get any weirder. Then, Mike Brey tweeted this:

You read that right: Brey has taken to social media to try and round out Notre Dame’s 2020-21 schedule. To the surprise of no one, people started replying and quote tweeting with some very creative ideas. Not only did users call for teams at every level of college basketball to accept the invitation, but a few went as far as inviting the Irish to their own private, not-regulation courts. After all, how often do you get to play pickup basketball with a Division I power conference team?

As of now, no official announcement on this would-be opponent has been made. Meanwhile, the Irish begin their season Saturday at No. 13 Michigan State. Their first home game will be Wednesday against Western Michigan.

Watch: Western Michigan clocks Toledo with vintage ‘Dan Marino’ fake-spike TD

Western Michigan pulled the old fake spike on Toledo in a MAC game to perfection.

Some plays are worth waiting 20 years to call. Western Michigan’s Tim Lester displayed patience before finally sending in his secret play. The fake-spike worked as the Broncos stunned Toledo, 41-38, in the final seconds of MACtion Wednesday in Kalamazoo.

Setting the scene: Western Michigan trailed 38-28 with 2:54 left. The Broncos scored to draw within four but Thiago Kapps missed the PAT with 45 seconds remaining. That meant Western Michigan still needed a touchdown instead of a field goal to force overtime.

Time for the onside kick. Kapps’ kick is recovered by punter Nick Mihalic.

With the clock stopped momentarily for a first down with 20 seconds left, everything lined up for Lester, who had been awaiting this moment for decades. The final seconds started to tick as Western snapped the ball.

“We have two different plays like that. I’m not going to give you the names of them, but one’s supposed to look like spike it, and it’s pass, and one’s supposed to be a true spike it,” Lester said. “I told them at the beginning of the drive when they came up that I was going to use it and just reminded them of some of the key points, but we run that play every week.

“Like I said, in at least 20 years of coaching, I’ve never called it — I’ve called it one other time, but the D-coordinator called timeout; it was going to work, too. To see them execute that, I was proud of them.”

Watch as Broncos quarterback Kaleby Eleby fakes the spike at the Toledo 9 and finds Jaylen Hall in the end zone, who was open by an entire county.

For those of you who wager on sports, this had to be the mother of all bad beats. The betting line entering the game was Toledo getting 2.5 points. So, if you went to sleep up 38-28, you woke up to find out the Rockets lost by three points after the PAT. Ouch.

The original fake-spike happened Nov. 27, 1994, when Dan Marino found Mark Ingram after baffling the New York Jets.

Marv Albert and Paul Maguire on the call for NBC:

Watch the entire Western Michigan comeback sequence:

Return of the MAC – Schedule released

MACtion is back. See what days you’ll get to see MAC football back in your life this fall!

The MAC is officially back in business for the 2020 college football season.

Sure, it will last only five games for MAC teams but for some of us that enjoy flipping through their televisions on a Tuesday night and finding a live college football game to watch, the MAC’s return fills a football void.

Notre Dame was previously scheduled to play Western Michigan this season before the pandemic wound up forcing the cancellation of that contest.

The MAC today released their 2020 football schedule and it’s unique even by MAC standards.  It goes as follows:

Week 1 – Wednesday, Nov. 4
Buffalo at Northern Illinois
Ball State at Miami University
Eastern Michigan at Kent State
Ohio at Central Michigan
Bowling Green at Toledo
Western Michigan at Akron

Week 2 – Tuesday, Nov. 10
Miami University at Buffalo
Akron at Ohio
Kent State at Bowling Green
Wednesday, Nov. 11
Central Michigan at Northern Illinois
Eastern Michigan at Ball State
Toledo at Western Michigan

Week 3 – Tuesday, Nov. 17
Akron at Kent State
Buffalo at Bowling Green
Ohio at Miami
Wednesday, Nov. 18
Northern Illinois at Ball State
Toledo at Eastern Michigan
Western Michigan at Central Michigan

Week 4 – Saturday, Dec. 5
Ball State at Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan at Western Michigan
Toledo at Northern Illinois
Bowling Green at Akron
Buffalo at Ohio
Kent State at Miami

Week 5 – Saturday, Dec. 12
Central Michigan at Toledo
Northern Illinois at Eastern Michigan
Western Michigan at Ball State
Akron at Buffalo
Miami at Bowling Green
Ohio at Kent State

Conference Championship – Friday, Dec. 18
held at Ford Field, Detroit, MI

MAC cancels football, Notre Dame out an opponent

Just days after Notre Dame announced their revised 2020 football schedule amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ll have to reschedule yet again. That’s because the Mid American Conference (MAC) has become the first FBS conference to cancel their 2020 …

Just days after Notre Dame announced their revised 2020 football schedule amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ll have to reschedule yet again.

That’s because the Mid American Conference (MAC) has become the first FBS conference to cancel their 2020 fall football season, doing so on Saturday morning. There was no announcement as to whether the conference would make spring football an option.

That leaves Notre Dame without an opponent on September 19 when they were supposed to play host to Western Michigan, a MAC member.

Related: Predicting Notre Dame’s schedule game by game

Power Five conferences like the Big Ten canceling all out of conference games this year did a huge number on the MAC. For example, Central Michigan was to play road games at both Nebraska and Northwestern that would net the athletic department over two-million dollars in revenue but lost out on both opportunities.

Bowling Green loses out on $2.2 million they were set to receive for games at Ohio State and Illinois.

As Nicole Auerbach of The Atheltic points out, the MAC isn’t going to be the only conference that goes this route.

How many conferences will follow suit? The MAC was the final conference to announce their revised plans that were ultimately a cancelation, but that doesn’t mean several other can’t revise theirs and do the same thing.

Stay tuned as the fallout from this will impact a lot more than just the 2020 college football season.

Report: MAC becomes first FBS conference to cancel college football 2020

The Mid-American Conference is the first to cancel college football 2020 due to the pandemic.

The Mid-American Conference canceled its football season this fall because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report.

The decision was first reported by Brett McMurphy of Stadium.com.

Per Stadium.com: 

The MAC reached its decision Saturday morning in a vote by the league’s presidents, sources said. The conference presidents initially met Thursday to finalize the league’s scheduling format. However, Northern Illinois president Lisa Freeman, a former research scientist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, indicated her school would not play this fall because of the health and safety concerns, sources said.

“The league didn’t like the look of NIU going out on their own and not playing,” said a source, explaining the MAC’s non-vote on Thursday.

The Huskies have made a league-record eight MAC title game appearances and won four of the last nine MAC titles. After the league didn’t reach a decision Thursday, it voted Saturday not to play this fall, sources said.

The MAC is comprised of Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan — along with Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Kent State, Miami (Ohio), Northern Illinois, Ohio, and Toledo.

Western Michigan was scheduled to play Notre Dame in South Bend Sept. 19.

Notre Dame Finally Gets 2020 Football Schedule

Notre Dame’s 2020 football schedule is officially out. Check it out here and find out what longtime rivalry sadly ends…

Notre Dame and the ACC unveiled their 2020 football schedule on Thursday with some significant changes compared to what it looked like just a month ago.

Here’s how 2020 shapes up for Notre Dame:

Notre Dame 2020 Football Schedule:

September 12 vs. Duke
September 19 vs. Western Michigan
September 26 at Wake Forest (Charlotte)
October 3 BYE
October 10 vs. Florida State
October 17 vs. Louisville
October 24 at Pitt
October 31 at Georgia Tech
November 7 vs. Clemson
November 14 at Boston College
November 21 BYE
November 27 at North Carolina
December 5 vs. Syracuse
December 12 or 19 ACC Championship in Charlotte

There it is – Notre Dame’s first schedule as a member of the ACC.

As you may notice, the Navy game was unable to be worked out, marking the end of a consecutive series that dates all the way back to 1927.

What Revamped 2020 Season Could Mean for Notre Dame’s Independence

With all the talk about college football teams only playing conference games for a shortened 2020, Notre Dame is back at the forefront.

With all the talk about college football teams only playing conference games for a shortened 2020, Notre Dame is back at the forefront. The Irish and their fans take a lot of pride in the program’s independence, and if you asked most people who align themselves with the program, they wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, why would they ever admit that Michigan was right to deny them admission into the Big Ten?

But as Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated points out, the COVID-19 pandemic will create new issues and reignite old ones, namely whether the Irish should bite the bullet and join a conference. Although Notre Dame is not the only independent Football Bowl Subdivision program, it’s the only one regularly discussed as a College Football Playoff contender. To other fans, it’s not fair that their team has to devote most of its schedule to the same opponents every year while the Irish can play whoever they want and still get a seat at the head table if the committee deems them worthy.

The best solution for the Irish would be for the FBS to adopt the “conference-only, plus-one” model that athletic director Jack Swarbrick has talked about. That would almost certainly ensure that Notre Dame plays the same number of games as everyone else. Besides, everyone and their grandmother knows any game involving the Irish means greater exposure for their opponents.

Forde breaks down the Irish’s current 2020 schedule and what every game’s fate could be. Navy and the six ACC opponents should be safe, as should the Shamrock Series game with Wisconsin and the one involving Western Michigan of the Mid-American Conference. Arkansas also is scheduled to play in South Bend, but would an SEC team want to play its only nonconference game on the road? Meanwhile, the Pac-12 has discussed its teams only playing within the conference, which could spell trouble for the annual games against Stanford and USC.

Whatever happens, Notre Dame’s football independence might be more contentious than ever. But even the most ardent Irish haters have to admit that without them, the overall college football brand would suffer greatly. Plus, it’s unlikely the university will have wanted to give away scholarships for nothing, even if it decided to honor them without the reason these particular students came to South Bend. The only thing to do is set up an abbreviated schedule in way that gives independent programs the same number of games as everyone else.

It’s really simple:  If there’s no Notre Dame, there’s no college football. Period.

Notre Dame to Limit Attendance for 2020 Home Football Games

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick informed the masses Tuesday that home football games won’t feature full crowds in 2020.

Notre Dame spent a large chunk of their Tuesday raising money with “The Fight” which raised money for students whose families have been effected by Covid-19.

The stars of the Notre Dame community aligned with Brian Kelly, Pat Connaughton, Mike Brey and plenty of others speaking on a live stream but it was athletic director Jack Swarbrick who stole the headlines.

Swarbrick was asked about if there would be fans in the stands for Notre Dame football games this fall and the athletic director didn’t sell any false hope.

We’re committed to having fans in the stands and we’ll start with the other students. My view throughout has been, if we think it’s safe for students to be on the field playing football, it should be safe for the students to be in the stands watching football. So, we’ll build off that base of the other students, faculty and staff will be a priority for us to give them an opportunity, and then our fans. We haven’t yet gotten to the question of how big that audience is. We won’t be at capacity. We’ll do something less than that. And we’ll be very careful about maintaining social distance, how the facility works, how you enter it, how you exit it, all things to be determined. We’re working hard on them.” 

-Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick on “The Fight”

Swarbrick didn’t give an answer on how many fans will be in Notre Dame Stadium this fall but it certainly won’t be the 80,795 capacity crowd that the Irish usually play in front of.

If you’ve been to Notre Dame Stadium you’re well aware how they pack you in like sardines.  Your seat on the wooden benches are wide enough for perhaps a nine year old to sit comfortably, but not anyone much older than that.

Now factor in social distancing and trying to maintain six feet of separation then that we’ve been told to keep apart and you’re looking at what, a maximum of a one-third capacity crowd?

It’s not surprising but it doesn’t mean it won’t look strange when Notre Dame Stadium is at roughly 30% capacity or whatever that number ends up being.