It certainly wasn’t a finale to remember. The MSU Women’s Basketball Team hosted Ohio State on Sunday on the last day of the Big Ten season. Unfortunately, they decided to copy the strategy of the Men’s Team in their recent matchup against the Buckeyes, that being not showing up in the first half. For a game MSU needed to win in order to have a chance at the 4-seed and a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament, the Women of Sparta came out with no sense of urgency and allowed OSU to deliver a knock-out
punch before they even worked up a sweat.
While it was the final regular season game, there is still a chance that the Spartans will receive a top-16 spot in the NCAA Tournament, in which case they will host their opening weekend games. According to this morning’s bracket reveal, we are still clinging on to one of those 4-seeds. Of course, this could change depending on what happens in the Big Ten Tourney; perhaps our 7-seed path leaves us with a bad loss to Iowa, the Big Ten’s 2nd place team, and we will not maintain that privilege.
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Back to today’s game, MSU did not make its first field goal until seven minutes had elapsed; that made the score 15-5 OSU. The Spartans trailed 23-9 after the 1st quarter, and it did not get better after that. At one point in the second quarter, the Buckeyes took a 30-point lead at 49-19 before giving up a touchdown for a 49-26 halftime score. Michigan State showed some life in the 3rd quarter, managing to get within 14 at 62-48, but the visiting team turned it back on in the final ten minutes and exited the Breslin with an 87-68 victory.
Grace VanSlooten led MSU in several categories today, finishing with 17 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocks. Rashunda Jones and Ines Sotelo both came off the bench to contribute 16 and 11 points, respectively. They were the only other Spartans to score in double figures. Point Guard Kennedy Blair, the out-of-nowhere savior of this team’s season after the injury to Theryn Hallock, struggled today, going 2-9 for 7 points and 4 assists, but also 3 turnovers.
With the loss, the Spartans slot into the 7-seed of the Big Ten Tournament, so they will get started on Thursday. The team gets a single-bye and will await the winner of Wednesday’s opening round game between #10 Illinois and #15 Wisconsin.
With the regular season now complete, we can take a look back at what has transpired and take a peek at what is ahead. It was certainly one of the better seasons ever for the MSU Women, and the team actually had the best start in program history. After winning their first 8 games, MSU dropped a game to Wisconsin. But then they rebounded from that to go on a 9-game winning streak for a 17-1 record in the middle of January. After that, the heavy portion of the MSU schedule knocked the luster off this team a bit, as the Spartans finished the season going 5-6, including 1-6 against ranked teams, to complete the regular season at 22-7, 11-7 in conference. The last of those four late season losses were by at least 15 points.
Grace Van Slooten ended up leading the team in scoring at 15.0 PPG, and Kennedy Blair was just behind her at 14.1. Rashunda Jones and Jalyn Brown also finished with double-digit averages at 11.9 and 11.2, respectively. Theryn Hallock was averaging 10.6 PPG through 8 games before her injury sidelined her. The aforementioned Blair led the team with 7.2 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 2.4 steals. The sophomore should come into her junior season next year with massive expectations.
As a team, Michigan State averaged an impressive 83.5 PPG, good for 10th nationally and 3rd in the B1G. They shot the ball extremely well, finishing the regular season with a 48.2% rate, also 10th in the NCAA. On the other hand, this team struggled on the boards, finishing closer to the bottom of the Big Ten rankings than the top. This all kind of feels like the polar opposite of the Men’s Team. Of course, a lot of these stats were inflated during our 17-1 start which included four games where the Spartans hit the century mark against low-major competition.
Glancing ahead to MSU’s conference tournament, where a couple of wins and a berth in the semifinals may be needed to hold onto one of those top-16 spots and an opening weekend hosting gig for the NCAA Tournament. Their Thursday matchup will be against either Illinois, who we beat at home, or Wisconsin, who we lost to on the road. TOC will publish a preview once we know the opponent. If the Spartans win that game, they will then take on the waiting 2-seed Iowa in a Friday quarterfinal.
Judging by MSU’s performance against ranked teams, particularly in February, I find it very difficult to believe that the Spartans will advance past that matchup against the Hawkeyes. That is, if they get by their first game against either the Illini or the Badgers.
Postseason play is just days away. All women’s tournament games will be on the Big Ten Network. Our tourney opener will be at 6:30 PM ET Thursday.
