Women’s Basketball Falls at UM, 86-65

Michigan State Women’s Basketball traveled to Ann Arbor today for a rematch with #7 Michigan.  The Spartans entered the game at 20-5 overall and 9-5 in the Big Ten, which put MSU in sixth place in the Conference.  Michigan came in at 21-4 overall and second in the Big Ten at 12-2.  

How we got here: MSU season review

MSU completed a perfect non-conference slate with a 66-49 win over #14 Mississippi back on December 22, which might qualify as the Spartans’ best win of the season so far.  

In conference, MSU scored an impressive 15 point victory at #25 Washington and completed their West Coast trip with a win over Oregon.  Michigan State also scored a narrow victory at home over Nebraska, who was ranked at the time but has since fallen to 5-9 in the Big Ten.  

The Spartans, however, are still looking for a real marquee win, not only this season, but of head coach Robyn Fralick’s three year tenure in East Lansing.  MSU has had plenty of chances this year in the deep Big Ten but, so far, has come up short in the biggest of games.  

Michigan State suffered a seven point loss at #15 Iowa but was less competitive against #20 Maryland and #2 UCLA at home.  The Bruins dealt the Spartans their most recent loss on Wednesday and Michigan State was never in the game.  MSU trailed 44-20 at halftime and UCLA went on to an 86-63 victory.  

For a team hoping to compete for a conference championship and advance past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, the losses to Maryland and UCLA were humbling.  

In addition to these recent defeats, Michigan State has been dealing with some adversity in the form of injuries to key players suffered early in the season.  Senior captain and starting guard Theryn Hallock suffered a foot injury against Temple in late November.  Hallock returned a month later against Rutgers but re-injured the foot and hasn’t seen game action since.

Even though Michigan State emerged with a 70-64 victory, the Rutgers game would prove costly for the Spartans.  In the same game where Hallock went down for the second time, senior Isaline Alexander was lost for the season with a leg injury.  

Unfortunately, this added to a history of injuries for Alexander, who suffered a Lisfranc foot injury just three games into the 2023-2024 season.  This was followed by an ACL tear, which occurred just after Alexander was cleared from the foot injury, and caused her to miss the entire 2024-2025 season.  Alexander played in the first 13 games this year, had worked her way into the starting lineup, and was averaging 9.6 points per game.  

The Spartans have had time to adjust to life without Hallock and Alexander on the floor but the fact remains that they have been down two starters for much of the year.  Depth is also key with the style that Michigan State likes to play, which often involves an active full court press.  Fralick likes to rotate a lot of players so they can aggressively defend the entire floor while keeping players fresh.  

In the absence of Hallock and Alexander, senior forward Grace VanSlooten has led MSU with 15.2 points and 6.7 rebounds per game.  In addition, sophomore guard Kennedy Blair has been having a breakout season for the Spartans.  After playing nine minutes per game last year, Blair has started each game for MSU this season and averages 13.6 points and 7 boards in 29 minutes.  

Transfer guards Rashunda Jones (Purdue) and Jalyn Brown (Arizona State) are also averaging in double figures for Michigan State.  

The rematch with Michigan

The Spartans did have their chances in the first matchup with Michigan but the Wolverines left East Lansing two weeks ago with a 94-91 instant classic overtime victory.  Michigan led most of the way in that game and made the most of some key offensive rebounds.  Still, the Spartans came back in the fourth quarter and nearly pulled out a win in regulation but Ines Sotelo’s half court heave at the buzzer rimmed out.  

One of the questions entering today’s game was how the Spartans would respond after getting blown out at home by the Bruins.  Initially, the answer was good.  Michigan State was effective in the paint on offense and getting stops on defense en route to a 21-15 lead at the end of the first quarter.

The tide changed massively from there though.  The Spartans, who only averaged 13 turnovers per game on the year, committed 12 in the second quarter alone against the Wolverines.  Despite shooting just 38% in the first half, Michigan outscored MSU 26-9 in the second quarter.  The Wolverines also had a 10-1 advantage in offensive rebounds, which led to 13 second chance points for UM compared to none for MSU.  

Michigan continued to grow their lead in the second half and the Wolverines got the season sweep with an 86-65 win – Michigan’s largest margin of victory in series history.  

The Spartans had no answers for UM’s Syla Swords and Olivia Olson, who scored 24 and 23, respectively, for the Wolverines.  Blair led MSU with 21 points and 12 rebounds but also had eight turnovers.  In her defense, Blair just didn’t get much help.  Brown with 11 and VanSlooten with 10 points were the only other Spartans in double figures.  VanSlooten, who is usually a strong rebounder, only gathered two boards against Michigan.  

To literally add injury to insult, two more key Spartans went down in the second half.  Jones landed awkwardly in the third quarter while battling for an offensive rebound and suffered an apparent lower leg injury.  She was in obvious pain and had to be helped off the floor to the locker room.  Jones returned to the Spartan bench but did not see any more game action.  

Midway through the fourth quarter, sophomore Juliann Woodard, who has often provided a spark off the bench for Michigan State this year, took a hard shot to the head, also while battling for an offensive board.  There was nothing malicious with either injury – Woodard was impacted inadvertently by a fellow Spartan and remained on the floor for several minutes.  After medical staff initially brought a stretcher out, Woodard left the floor in a wheelchair but appeared to be alert.  

Opportunity still lies ahead

Despite getting swept by their rival, being out of the Big Ten regular season race, and suffering two more injuries, there might still be some positive news for the Spartans.  The initial NCAA Tournament Selection Committee rankings were released on Saturday with Michigan State at 14th.  The top 16 teams, as seeded by the Committee host first and second round tournament games so, as of now, the Spartans would have the advantage of playing in the Breslin Center on the tournament’s first weekend.  

The Spartans’ remaining regular season games are:

Feb. 18 vs. Northwestern who is just 2-12 in league play and 8-17 overall,

Feb. 22 @ Minnesota, 10-4 and 19-6, winners of 7 in a row,

Mar. 1 vs. #8 Ohio State, 11-3 and 22-4.

To maintain their home court advantage for the NCAA tournament, and provide the Spartans with a great opportunity to advance to the Regionals, Michigan State needs to start with getting back on track against Northwestern before two really tough games to end the regular season.  The Spartans might then need to secure their opportunity to host two tournament games by beating Ohio State on Senior Day.