MSU Women’s Basketball: now 2-1 in Big Ten play
- Tobias Webb
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
The Spartans survived a tough matchup with Rutgers to end 2025 and notched a dominant win against the Indiana Hoosiers to kick off 2026, making it into January with only one loss on the season. In December they took home two trophies, from the Cherokee Invitational and the Nassau Championship, with notable wins over Clemson, and a 15th ranked Ole Miss.
Their one loss came in the Big Ten opener against Wisconsin, in Madison. The shots were not falling for the Spartans that day, and the Badgers shot 46 percent from deep, ending the Spartans’ 8 game winning streak to start the season. The Wisconsin defense has been formidable all year, holding teams like Marquette, Ole Miss, and our Spartans, to less than 40 percent shooting from the field. Against MSU also they managed to stay even in the turnover margin, neutralizing the Spartans’ greatest strength.
The Rutgers game was too close for comfort, as the Scarlet Knights kept things close until the very end. They came to the Breslin Center with a reputation of playing big, averaging 15 offensive rebounds a game, and ranking eighth best in the nation for second chance scoring. In the first half they dominated us on the boards, much to coach Fralick’s chagrin, but the Spartans rebounded better in the second half and ended with 19 offensive boards of our own. That, paired with 25 forced turnovers, gave MSU 15 more field goal opportunities than Rutgers, which were much needed, because our shooting was off, particularly from deep.
The Spartans led by a narrow margin for most of the game, but Rutgers managed to pull ahead in the middle of the 3rd quarter. At that point Fralick called a timeout to calm down her team as they were starting to look a bit frantic. Kennedy Blair and Rashunda Jones came out of that huddle with a new energy, basically refusing to lose, with Jones attacking the rim, firing up the crowd with multiple and-1s, and Blair taking her defense to a new level, grabbing a steal for an easy bucket to retake the lead, and swatting down a pivotal block in the 4th quarter. The Spartans still couldn’t pull away as some uncharacteristic turnovers allowed Rutgers to keep it close with a couple of clutch 3 pointers. However, the Scarlett Knights could not defend cleanly, as Sotelo, Blair, and Jones all made it to the line for free throws in the last couple minutes, to help seal the win.
Unfortunately, this game came with some injury attrition, as Isa Alexander tragically took her 4th season ending injury in 5 years as a Spartan, and Theryn Hallock seemed to aggravate the foot injury she took earlier this season.
In our new year’s day outing against Indiana the Spartans took over Assembly Hall with fantastic performances from VanSlooten, Brown, and Blair. Jalyn Brown led us in scoring with 20 points and 4 of 5 from deep, in her first start for MSU. VanSlooten made up for the absence of Isa Alexander with a dominant day on the boards, hauling in 14 of the Spartans’ 32 rebounds with 6 of them coming off the offensive glass. Kennedy Blair had another well rounded stat sheet with 13 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds on 66 percent shooting.
The Spartans’ offense as a whole had a much needed resurgence for this game; we shot 53 percent from the field and 47 percent from deep. The 17 assists on 29 made baskets felt like a return to form, but 16 turnovers slowed us down, as Indiana managed to keep even with us in that stat.
Even with 2 starting caliber players out for this game, as Hallock sits out for now and Isa Alexander is out for the season, the Spartans still had a deeper rotation than the Hoosiers. The attrition on Indiana’s starters showed as the MSU pulled further and further into the lead through the second half.
The Spartans have yet to play against any of the top Big Ten teams but have already taken a loss and eked out a close win in conference play. MSU will have some much tougher tests ahead, as 7 other Big Ten teams rank in the top 25, all ahead of the 24th ranked Spartans.
MSU plays at home against Illinois on Sunday.
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