Football, hoops & hockey

Grid iron: A 7-5 record was my minimum goal for the regular season. IF we have an A-game night against Penn State as with Michigan (till the last four minutes), then we win. The crowd is often awesome for MSU-PSU at night. But, if the sieve reemerges in the Spartan secondary, I may have to go find a big redwood to bang my head against, while I ponder if I’m ready to fly to Phoenix or San Antonio to play an Oklahoma or such in the Insight or Alamo Bowl. (That’s making the very reasonable assumption that UM doesn’t win against OSU and we’re not Detroit-bound.)

Hoops: Did you see that first half against Gonzaga? Coach Few must have modeled that start after UNC’s in the NCAA final: Punch the daylights out of MSU in the first half and hope they don’t wake up till deep in the second half. I thought I'd been teleported back to Ford Field. It came way too close to working for Gonzaga and I don’t doubt for a minute that Coach Izzo is pumping up our new centers with every resource he can find to stop the madness and make sure we're the ones hitting hard in the first half. It’s going to be interesting to watch this sort out prior to the Big Ten season.

Hockey: Hasn’t this been a timely and fun early season? My Spartan world was due for a big lift. And, I can hold a huge grin inside for a couple of months when we beat up on UM like last weekend…twice! Spartan fans, and now maybe even USC (football) and Duke (hoops), have learned to be cautious with their enthusiasm for the sake of their sanity. But, I am really happy as clams that this team has bounced back so astoundingly and quickly, after a 2008-2009 season we all want to forget.

Where among these possibilities are you putting your Spartanism these days? Got any high hopes you think are defendable?