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Writer's pictureTobias Webb

Good and Bad from MSU’s Victory over EMU

Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence - Beige Planet Photography

Pictured: Robyn Fralick coaching Jocelyn Tate



The Good:


Without Grace VanSlooten, our starting power forward and leading scorer for the Spartans, we still managed to outscore Eastern Michigan 95 to 49 and got most of our points in the paint with 60. VanSlooten’s absence was a game time decision based on sickness and her feeling too unwell to play. It’s unclear if she will play on Thursday against Eastern Kentucky but thankfully she’s not injured, just ill.


Theryn Hallock led us in scoring with 18 points in 18 minutes played. She had a nice combination of fast break points, nifty moves to get free to the rim, and 40% shooting from deep. She’s a natural leader on this team and stepped up majorly after a Yale game where she left a few points on the table. Her one bad stretch this game involved two quick turnovers where she aggressively passed in to Sotelo against a shorter EMU lineup. Sotelo had the advantage but not enough strength to bring it down to her body against tightening defense. Theryn will continue to play at a breakneck pace, and with our depth this year Fralick has no intention of slowing her down at all.


We looked better than our last outing at offensive rebounding, getting 13 boards on 28 misses. 5 came from Simmons who filled the stat sheet with 8 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 steals.


Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence - Beige Planet Photography

Pictured: Jaddan Simmons on defense


Another game played with 18 steals and an opponent held under 50. Ayrault gathered 4 steals to match Simmons, and Nyla Hampton got 3. Hampton and Simmons both looked much more locked in defensively than they were against Yale.  After the game Simmons told us, “Defense is always my number one thing, when I play basketball I just love to get steals, get rebounds, and then get out in transition and find my teammates. … I might not be hitting the shots but I know that I can control my effort and my energy so I just try to keep improving on that every game.”


With Grace VanSlooten out we saw a lot more of Sotelo playing the 5 and she held up well, scoring 13 points, mostly in the paint. Her disruption on inbounding plays led to multiple steals for the Spartans. She’s stealthy on offense, we found her on multiple back door cuts for easy layups. Fralick praised her defense in the postgame saying, “We’re asking her to guard big physical fives, we’re asking her to guard twos. … She can hedge, she can press, she can guard. … She just fits so well in the way we play; so it’ll be fun to keep watching her develop, I think we’re seeing just the beginning.”


Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence - Beige Planet Photography

Pictured: Ines Sotelo under the hoop


Once again Sotelo was not the only freshman to make an impact. Kennedy Blair checked in earlier than usual with our squad slightly short handed and played an extra four minutes on top of the 13 a game she’s been getting. Robin Fralick told us that Blair’s “joy for the game is contagious” and that she “plays fearless”. That mentality along with her growing skill set may lead to a serious role for her this season. Sinai Douglas is starting to move a lot better, and has clearly kicked off some of the rust from her year recovering from injury. Juliann Woodard is determined to score for us and is averaging a point per minute played and 50% three point shooting in her young Spartan career. She’s an exciting player and it’s good for the future that she’s getting an opportunity to shine late in games. Our starters are setting us up with huge leads in the fourth allowing us to play our less developed players, if we can continue that trend our starters will be more rested and next year we’ll have 6 sophomores all with decent game time experience.



The Bad:


We could not keep Eastern’s leading scorer, Sisi Eleko, from hitting her averages in points and rebounds with 25 and 12. She was able to shoot from anywhere and took advantage of some late switches by the Spartans, but also outmaneuvered us in the paint several times. Ayrault and Sotelo both looked for block opportunities and found none.


We allowed 10 steals and gave up 13 total turnovers. Last year we were a top 3 team in the country in assist to turnover ratio all season long. We’re still starting in the top 10 with 2 assists for every lost ball, but stronger opponents are coming up and we want be the team that’s getting more shots up in any given game, to do that we must protect the rock.


Shumate had a rough game shooting 0 of 8 from beyond the arc, with all fairly open shots. Fralick liked the shot selection saying, “there wasn’t a single three she took tonight that wasn’t a good 3, I think she took all good 3’s. She’s a good shooter so she’s just gotta show up and have an unflappable confidence.” Shumate will continue to have the green light with shooting and shouldn’t let one bad game affect her mentality.


Photo Credit: Alfred Laurence - Beige Planet Photography

Pictured: Juliann Woodard (left), Sinai Douglas (right), Helen Holley fighting for a loose ball


Mary Meng needs to work on her defensive agility, she was too slow in hedge actions and drew 2 fouls in her 7 minutes. It’s always good to have super tall players on roster but we expect a lot of movement from everyone in our defensive scheme, so she needs to improve her speed and footwork in order to carve out a meaningful role on this year’s squad. She appeared to get some useful coaching from Fralick, and is at least getting minutes on film that should help her see and correct the issues.


We allowed 10 offensive rebounds, so far this season we’re not dominating the boards the way we should be. It’s a little harder without VanSlooten but we still had a solid height and athleticism advantage, and only managed 5 more total rebounds than Eastern. Rebounding is a lot tougher in the Big Ten so we need to show a little more passion for getting to the ball, and box out more solidly.

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