MSU Women’s basketball lost to an 8th ranked Maryland by a slim margin over the weekend, then beat Purdue by 18 to ring in the new year and bring us back up to a winning Big Ten record.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Jocelyn Tate
Tate did everything this week; in both games she brought the most energy to the court. She was leaping out of bounds to save possessions, forcing jump balls, leading our team in offensive rebounding, and hitting her threes. All that on top of her regular tenacious defense and relentless attack of the paint to finish with either hand, helped keep us in the game after an early deficit against Maryland, and led to a dominant first half against Purdue. In the two games combined she scored 26 points, 21 rebounds, 6 assists, 6 steals, and hit 4-8 from deep. That’s a level of production we haven’t seen from Tate in her season and a half in the green and white.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
In the past when she showed this amount of effort some sloppiness came with it and she drew too many fouls; after beating Purdue she told us that her ability to communicate and receive feedback from refs has helped to clean up her game. The result is us getting the best version of Tate for upwards of 30 minutes a game, an impact that cannot be overstated.
Like many players on our team Tate has aspirations to play professionally, though she is less keen on the WNBA than others. Her undersized small forward game is strong and you have to be inches taller to guard her in the post, unfortunately, most WNBA teams have taller small forwards that would counter the best part of Tate’s play style. In Europe however, her all around skill set makes her a deadly option and she won’t be totally outmatched in size. She’s keeping in touch with her teammate from last year, former Spartan Mo Joiner, who is currently a rookie playing 25 minutes a game for Baxi Ferrol in the Liga Femenina de Baloncesto, Spain’s pro league. Wherever Tate ends up next year she’ll be an asset, and it’s already been exciting to watch all that she achieves in her senior season.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Maryland
The Maryland game was a tough loss but a great game full of future WNBA players. Maryland has Shyanne Sellers the 6’2 senior combo guard who’s projected to go late first round or early second round in this year’s WNBA draft, and a trio of juniors who each have a decent chance to play at the highest level: Bri McDaniel who was recruited to Maryland, and the two transfers Saylor Poffenbarger who previously played for Arkansas, and Kaylene Smikle from Rutgers.
The Spartans boast our own high end talent with Grace VanSlooten projected to go in the middle of round one in the 2026 WNBA draft, Jaddan Simmons and Julia Ayrault about to have pro ball options overseas if they can’t find a home in the WNBA after this season, and Inés Sotelo who is just a freshman but with her skill set, length, and agility, she will likely grow into a WNBA caliber player under Robyn Fralick.
All that talent made for an exciting game but Michigan State struggled to find a rhythm in the first half. We allowed Maryland to take a 17 point lead as our layups were not falling, we weren’t passing the ball well, and we fouled too many times in the paint. Our usual margin of free throw attempts went the other way and the Terps got built much of their lead on the free throw line. Hallock struggled to get going early after being blocked on her first drive in layup attempt, and VanSlooten got completely erased in this game going 1 of 9 from the field with 4 turnovers and only 3 rebounds.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
It wasn’t all bad, as the Spartans defense was playing physically to create opportunities, and stop Maryland from building much on their lead. When things were starting to get out of hand, our veterans kept their cool and didn’t let the wheels fall off. Tate balled out in particular, but credit also goes to Hallock and Ayrault for keeping up the intensity and finding ways to score in the second half. Hallock led us in scoring with 20 points, shooting 42% from the field and 2 of 8 from deep.
Defense stayed strong and we crawled our way back to a tie game with 4 minutes left. Nyla Hampton came up with 4 tough blocks after being exposed brutally on a press break in the second quarter, by a crisp behind the back pass from Shyanne Sellers. Unfortunately, Sellers was having one of the best nights of her career; she dimed up a few assists late in the game that thwarted a huge Spartans comeback.
It is bad luck that all our games against top ten ranked teams are on the road. This is one where the difference in talent and execution was marginal, and a home court advantage may have been the difference. It was our first Big Ten road game, and we shouldn’t feel too badly about this loss as it was good prep for USC, UCLA, and Ohio State all of which are going to be tough games in opposing arenas.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Purdue
The Purdue game went much better, and the Spartans were able to build an insurmountable 27 point lead in the first half. The defense was incredible, only allowing 3 points in the second quarter and keeping Purdue under 60 total. In the first half our offense was looking as good as we’ve seen this season, the three ball was falling at a 40% clip, we were scoring readily in the paint, and passing was back to normal with over half our made field goals coming from an assist. Threes stopped falling in the second half but it didn’t matter, we lost a little a ground and still won by 18.
Inés Sotelo got her first start against Purdue and immediately proved herself worthy. She went 6 for 10 from the floor scoring a career high 16 points and looking very confident for a freshman. Her press skills showed yet again, as she was able to gather 3 steals herself and disrupt multiple inbounds, a feat which is quickly becoming a calling card for the Spanish phenom.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Our field goal percentage was low this game but we still managed 3 more field goals than Purdue by putting up 15 more attempts. We won the rebounding battle, earning 3 more rebounds than the Boilermakers, and an impressive 19 offensive boards. We also dominated the turnover battle with all our players recording at least one steal, Tate, Sotelo, and Simmons each grabbing 3, for a total of 18 steals. In total Purdue lost 25 turnovers to our 10, the plus 15 margin was a huge part of our victory and is representative of the identity of our Spartans this season. We will not let it be easy to dribble down the court.
We were back to our normal free throw rate for this game, getting to the line 25 times and only letting Purdue have 4 free shots of their own. Tate and Simmons led the way getting a combined 14 free throws, though it was Tate’s turn to hit a low percentage on high volume this game, going just 4 of 8. Free throw rate has to get cleaned up, we are excellent at getting to the line but not good at scoring there consistently.
Fralick has been tightening up rotations after getting everyone involved earlier this season. She told us in the post game presser that this is a game by game decision and our younger players can still earn roles. Our talented group of third string guards, Abbey Kimball, Kennedy Blair, and Julianne Woodard, did not get to play against Purdue and might see very limited time until next season.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Three Pointers
It’s frustrating to see multiple important games with 25% or less falling from deep. Part of the issue is we have less experienced players getting the green light to take threes, as Fralick is emphasizing the “no-brainer threes”, which means take the shot if you’re wide open. So, some players who don’t normally shoot a high volume from deep are adjusting to the play style. You expect some growing pains from this but it will help the future of the team and the individual players if they can start hitting those shots, like Jocelyn Tate who told us she’d never taken 6 three point attempts in a single game before playing Purdue and putting 3 through the hoop.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Unfortunately, we also have capable shooters with proven track records who are putting in an uncharacteristically bad percentage. Shot selection is not the issue, occasionally Shumate has taken one slightly out of rhythm, or from a step deeper than necessary, but mostly it's players taking a shot they take all the time and not finding the net. Hopefully the law of averages comes in to play for our more experienced shooters, both Shumate and Hallock have had some brutal rim-outs and their shot looks clean, but they each need to find the bottom of the basket more often.
Teams are starting to double up in the paint and make offense a lot harder for VanSlooten and Ayrault. If we want to continue our dominance in the paint this season, we need to open things back up for our bigs by converting more of our three point attempts and forcing opposing guards to stay back on defense so our post players can get up more shots against just one defender under the basket. Ayrault in particular is capable of passing out of a double team to set up an open three, it’s now our guards’ responsibility to hit the open shot, because more teams will likely want to double our forwards until we start hitting those threes.
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