Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
MSU Women’s Basketball won a nail biter against Iowa to start Big Ten play and rose to 15th in the AP poll. It was not a pretty outing, both teams playing physically, and fouling out multiple players by the end. We desperately needed a win to start Big Ten play in good position, to continue our winning streak, and to beat one of the biggest brands in women’s college basketball for the first time since the 2019-20 season.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
The Offense:
This game shouldn’t have been so close, Iowa fouled us a ton and gave us 27 free throw attempts and we only scored 16 of them, just under 60%. VanSlooten once again led us in free throw attempts but only hit 6 of her 11. Our only player to hit over 75% was Simmons, who went 2 for 2. This needs to be cleaned up, we could’ve taken a strong lead and not given them a chance at the end by hitting our frees, other Big Ten teams will capitalize on this type of opportunity.
Iowa was not allowing many open threes for any of our guards, and the combo of Stuelke and O’Grady in the post made it tough on all our forwards, particularly Tate who handles a size mismatch well, but drew a couple fouls early and couldn’t find much wiggle room down low where she likes to maneuver into a lefty layup. Tate, Simmons, and Sotelo were all uncommonly unproductive on offense, scoring just 4 points in total. Credit does go to Simmons who pulled in 5 offensive rebounds, leading the game in that category and creating a big chunk of our 17 second chance points.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Our scoring was led by Julia Ayrault, with 19 points, though she hit a fairly low percentage with 7 of 19 shots falling. Her 2-4 from beyond the arc was a bright spot. VanSlooten managed 14 points on just seven shooting attempts, like many teams we’ve faced Iowa could not stop fouling her in the paint. Nyla Hampton had a sensational 4th quarter as she scored all 13 of her total points and went on a 6-0 run by herself to give us our first lead of the second half. All those points came from quick dribbles to the basket, turning a corner around bigger defenders and reading the lack of help defense. Hampton proved why she has been getting the start over Theryn Hallock, and coach Fralick praised her composure in the post game presser.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
The Defense:
Aside from allowing three point shooters to take several open threes, we were locked in defensively. We created 19 turnovers, 9 were counted as steals, and the remaining 10 were due to effort more than luck.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Iowa guard Lucy Olsen, who has been killer with a pull up mid range from anywhere near the elbow, was held to 13 points mostly from uncharacteristic threes. Inside the arc she hit an abysmal 1 of 11 against our defense, just scoring on a single tough buzzer beater that put Iowa up 5 at the half. Fralick credited the scout team’s ability to simulate those shots and the players’ focus in practice this week.
Our defensive rebounding was not good in the first half, though a lot of lucky bounces did go Iowa’s way, they were also playing more physically than the Spartans. As the game wore on they were unable to keep that edge, and because our full court press started creating more turnovers we were able to take more shots, ending the game with 6 more field goal attempts. Our conditioning, depth, and commitment to rebounding and press, even when it’s not working right away, were all huge parts of this tough win.
Julia Ayrault’s ability to guard anyone came in clutch yet again on Sunday when she stuck to Iowa guard Sydney Affolter like glue and got a clean block with 10 seconds left on the clock, to keep us up 1. She will go down as one of the best shot blockers in MSU history.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Rotations:
Jaddan Simmons once again led our team in minutes as her experience has proved invaluable. She has taken on the roll of our best rebounding guard this season and she’s tied with VanSlooten for the team lead in offensive rebounds with 30 this season. Even when her shots aren’t falling, like the 0 for 3 she put up against Iowa, she is still positively impacting the Spartans offense.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
This was a messy game where our seniors kept the wheels on and made sure we didn’t back down from the pressure. Freshmen minutes were very limited. We saw no action from Kennedy Blair who carved out a small role in guard relief this season by playing physically and rebounding. Sotelo got her regular 14 minutes but struggled a bit early picking up 3 fouls and two turnovers in the first half and taking an elbow to the face for her troubles. In the second half she performed more like herself and got things going in our press, ultimately gathering 3 steals. Juliann Woodard played for 2 minutes and made an immediate impact shooting 2 of 3 and gathering two rebounds in that short time. It’s hard to keep her off the court because she’s electric offensively and continues to score more points than she has minutes played in her first season.
Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence, Beige Planet Photography
Abbey Kimball once again did not check in after an ankle injury in practice, though she was active in the Palm Beach Classic.
Comments