Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Pictured: Julia Ayrault on defense in the Breslin Center
The Michigan State women’s basketball team won another game in blow out fashion on Thursday, despite a slow start. We only led by 4 at the end of the first quarter and didn’t build the lead at all in the second, but after halftime we brought the heat and out scored Eastern Kentucky 57 to 19. Ayrault missed a few early but brought her percentage up with great midrange shooting. Tate had a good matchup for her classic left hand attack, but suffered some early fouls that stopped her taking full advantage. VanSlooten struggled more than normal and gave up 6 turnovers. A lot went into this win which felt like our first real test of the season, here are three takeaways from our fourth game:
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Pictured: a pass between Grace VanSlooten and Jocelyn Tate
We’re going to shoot a lot of free throws this season:
Teams have to get aggressive on defense to stop us scoring in the paint. We have forwards who can handle the ball to find their own shot or pass to open cutters and jump shooters, and we’ve got point guards who drive quickly to the paint and seek contact. Grace VanSlooten leads the Spartans getting to the charity stripe 22 times in 3 games, and Hallock, Simmons, Ayrault and Blair are all averaging 3 or more free throws attempts per game. Being a great passing team is stressing defenses and allowing us to get good position in the paint. In Big Ten play we can expect our starting forwards and Inés Sotelo to get more minutes, they will look to keep up that paint production and dare opposing defenses to foul. As a team we currently rank second in the nation in free throw attempts, taking 31 per game.
Eastern Kentucky could not stop sending the Spartans to the line where we hit 24 of our 33 attempts. The 73% is completion from this game reflects our average and leaves something to be desired. Our guards have been too inconsistent with Simmons and Kimball missing half their frees against EKU, somewhat negating the 5 of 6 that Hallock hit. VanSlooten struggled in her first two games but hit 5 for 5 on Thursday; unfortunately, Sotelo wasn't getting them fall, with a 3 for 6 performance. We want opponents to continue giving us the attempts but we need to cash them in at higher percentage during Big Ten play, where a point here and there can be the difference.
Some of the Freshmen will expand their roles going in to Big Ten play, others will see their role reduced until next year:
So far, our freshmen players have seen most of their minutes in the 4th quarter, with the exception of Inés Sotelo, our phenom forward from Spain, who leads our freshmen in minutes with 15 per game. We won’t always have huge leads at the end of games and soon we’ll be forced to rely on our starters more heavily. The Eastern Kentucky game looked very close until our Spartans dominated the 3rd quarter and we saw season high minutes from Hallock, VanSlooten, and Ayrault.
Kennedy Blair is one other freshman to distinguish herself enough to join Sotelo with minutes in early game rotations. Her aggressive rebounding and defense earned her the extra time on court, and she’s quickly become a plus on offense as well. Her shots were not falling against the Colonels but she’s hit a 50/40/85 split in 13 minutes per game early this season. She’s a threat driving to the net because she can shoot through contact and pass out of trouble. Fralick expects all her players to constantly run, so Blair should have a role in keeping all the guards fresh, which could easily expand throughout the season.
Sotelo has already made a difference on defense and feels a bit like last year’s Tory Ozment who would come off the bench and immediately improve our team’s ability to produce turnovers. She’s also great at cutting to the rim and often gets behind defenses for an easy bucket. She's earning a ton of praise from her coaches and teammates and her role should continue to expand as our first forward off the bench.
Sinai Douglass and Helen Holley have only been getting 4 or 5 minutes a game and look like they need some polishing before making a big impact. Sinai is coming off a brutal knee injury. Holley has fantastic athleticism but is adjusting to a difficult small forward role for the Spartans.
Mary Meng and Juliann Woodard are both looking like they could push for more minutes, but it’s unclear whether their role is set to grow or diminish. Meng is a rim protecting 6’5 forward who is improving game to game and put up 4 rebounds and a block in her 5 minutes against Eastern Kentucky. She needs refining, on defense especially, but is starting to look like a valuable piece for the future. Woodard is a 6’ guard who’s averaging over a point per minute in her young Spartan career. She is unafraid to shoot the three and hit 4 of 4 from deep on her way to 16 points in just 6 minutes against EKU and has looked good offensively each game so far. It’s hard to argue with her offensive efficiency and she’s already come a long way since high school in her defensive footwork, so there is a chance she breaks through into some different rotations sooner than later.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Pictured: (left to right) Juliann Woodard, Jocelyn Tate, Helen Holley, Grace VanSlooten, Jaddan Simmons
We are not a one-dimensional team:
In our previous three outings we built up a lead early by gathering a ton of steals and rebounding well, ultimately not allowing the other team to take as many shots. We took at least 10 more field goal attempts than opponents in each of those games, but only managed to get up one more attempt than Eastern Kentucky. We out rebounded the Colonels by 20 but tied them with 7 steals and only won the turnover battle by 4. This victory was about shooting percentage and drawing fouls; we hit 52% of our shots to their 34% and took 33 free throws while giving up only 12, and in the fourth quarter 3 of EKU’s starters fouled out. After an abysmal three-point shooting game against Eastern Michigan a few days prior, we had a resurgence in shooting against EKU, hitting 10 of 20 from deep. Setting aside the stellar 4 for 4 from beyond the arc that freshman guard Juliann Woodard scored in the final 6 minutes, our regular lineups put in a solid 37% of their threes. We had to adjust our game a bit to beat the strong defense in the paint, and shoot from further back until we spread out and wore down the Colonels to find more luck inside.
The part of our game that never changes for the Spartans is a dedication to passing; head coach Fralick emphasizes it and blamed our slow start in this game on a lack of ball movement. We are now averaging just over 24 assists per game, the second best team in the country at that statistic. We don’t have any Caitlin Clark style superstars on our team and we lost Deedee Hagemann, who is in the Spartans record books for her assisting prowess. We get the assists because all of our players are unselfish hard workers, and each can be expected to put up a good shot when the opportunity arises. VanSlooten, Hallock, and Ayrault lead us in points but we are 5th best in the nation at scoring off the bench. It’s not easy to predict who will lead us in scoring any given night and we can take what defenses give us with a variety of lineups. Fralick is a great coach with a deep bag of weapons this season, we can expect her to come up with some tough wins and get us to the big show in March.
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