For the 3rd season in a row, the Michigan State Women’s Basketball Team is going dancing. This is the most consecutive trips for the Spartans since they made six straight appearances under former coach Suzy Merchant from 2008-09 through 2013-14. This team has not made it out of the first weekend since the first year of that prior streak when they made it to the Sweet 16. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, the team was looking like this would be the year they would get back to that stage, at least,
as they were being projected to be an opening weekend host. Unfortunately, getting crushed at home by Ohio State in the regular season finale followed by a loss to a lower-seeded Illinois team in the conference tourney has resulted in MSU falling to the 5-line.
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Now, without the luxury of home court advantage, MSU is slated to play the Colorado State Rams. CSU tied for second in the Mountain West season and got the 3-seed in the conference tourney, which they went on to win. The Rams completed their season with a 27-7 record. If you are wondering why they played 34 games, it is because the MWC moved to a 20-game conference schedule this year, while the Big Ten only runs an 18-game slate. That plus the two extra conference tournament games is how the Rams played 4 games more than the Spartans.
The name to know for Colorado State is Lexus Bargesser who hails from Grass Lake, Michigan – just east of Jackson. The senior guard leads the Rams in scoring at 15.2 PPG and also chimes in with 5.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists. Bargesser transferred this past offseason from Indiana with whom she earned three trips to the NCAA Tournament.
Two other guards also have averaged double digits – Brooke Carlson at 11.3 and Kloe Froebe at 10.7. Both are sophomores for the team that recruited them out of high school, and both are playing in their first NCAA Tournament. As a team, CSU only scores 66.5 points per game, a significantly lower average than the 83.0 that the Spartans average.
Michigan State should also have a noticeable size advantage in this one. Of the seven Rams who see the floor for over ten minutes per game, the tallest is 6’3”, another is 6’0”, and the rest are under 6 feet tall. Comparatively, the Spartans have a handful of regular rotation players who stand at least 6’0”. I assumed when I saw the collective height, or lack thereof, for CSU that I would see Michigan State with much better rebounding stats. Alas, that is not the case as the Rams actually average slightly more – 36.0 to 35.3. Context is required here, however, as one must factor in that the Spartans were going against bigger and better players in the Big Ten conference than the Rams were facing up there in the mountains.
This will be Colorado State’s first trip to the NCAAT after missing it nine straight years. It is only the second time they have qualified under Head Coach Ryun Williams. They lost their opening game in that previous trip. Michigan State has two keys to this game. First, they need to take away Lexus Bargesser’s looks at the basket, particularly from deep. Second, they need to make sure they don’t give up long rebounds off of deep looks. With the size discrepancy, we should expect the Rams to be settling for a high percentage of shots from the outside as getting inside should not be a recipe for success against MSU. But if a bunch of those shots end up bouncing back out and CSU can earn second looks, then that limits the Spartans’ offensive opportunities and thus reduces the Green & White’s chances to run their superior offense.
Michigan State will face Colorado State on Friday at 7:30 PM. The game will be on ESPNEWS. TOC will have a game thread.
