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Back in the summer, it was revealed that the Michigan State Spartans would face the Notre Dame Fighting Irish as a part of the 24th annual ACC/Big Ten challenge. Today, it was announced that the game will tip off starting at 9:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Nov. 30.
The game will be broadcast on ESPN2, and all 14 contests in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge will be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks.
️ UPDATE: Our ACC/Big Ten Challenge game against Notre Dame will tip at 9:15 PM ET on ESPN2 on 11/30. pic.twitter.com/2k1CBdfU68
— Michigan State Men's Basketball (@MSU_Basketball) September 27, 2022
This year’s game with the Irish marks the 98th all-time meeting between the two programs, but just the fourth since the legendary NCAA Tournament Regional Final in 1979. Notre Dame leads the head-to-head series 60-37, but the Spartans have had recent success in winning 10 of the previous 14 meetings, stretching back to 1965.
This century, Michigan State has won two of three games against Notre Dame with the only loss coming in South Bend in the form of a 79-78 overtime loss on Dec. 3, 2014 as a part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. MSU last defeated Notre Dame on Nov. 28, 2020, with an 80-70 victory.
This year, the Spartans will attempt to avenge that loss from 2014 and build upon their current record of 9-12 in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Eight of Michigan State’s nine wins in the Challenge have come within the comfortable confines of the Jack Breslin Student Events Center.
The Spartans’ lone road win in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge came way back in the first year of the event in 1999 when the No. 8 Michigan State defeated No. 2 North Carolina, 86-76. The Spartans played that game without senior point guard Mateen Cleeves, who was injured with a stress fracture in his right foot. Michigan State would go on that year to win the national title.
This year’s game against the Fighting Irish will mark the end of an absolutely brutal non-conference three-week stretch. Over that stretch Michigan State will face Gonzaga, Kentucky, Villanova, Alabama, either UConn or Oregon, and then possibly North Carolina or Villanova for a second time. The Spartans will also make two trips to the West Coast in that span to both San Diego (to face Gonzaga) and Portland (for the Phil Knight Invitational).
But, as head coach Tom Izzo always says, “Anyone. Anywhere.”
