Michigan and Michigan State are entering the Big Ten women's basketball tournaments on different trajectories, but the only stat that means a darn thing now is 0-0.
It's a new season, the only one that matters.
"Oh, yeah," Dean Lockwood, interim head coach at Michigan State, said after practice Tuesday afternoon. "If you can't get excited about tournament time, you don't have red blood in your veins.
"There's a good energy to our team right now."
It's been an up-and-down season for the Spartans (15-13, 7-10 Big Ten), who lost three straight games after head coach Suzy Merchant was sidelined indefinitely because of an undisclosed medical issue.