I said two things ahead of Michigan State’s matchup with Oklahoma. First, the Spartans needed to play much better than they did against Colorado State. And second, that we were going to have our hands full with the Sooners’ center, Raegan Beers. Both of those things ended up being the case.
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MSU coach Robyn Fralick made the decision to alter the starting five, sitting 5’8” guard Rashunda Jones, who only had one point in Friday’s victory, and starting 6’3” Isaline Alexander. The thought process was to give MSU more height and to not allow Grace VanSlooten to exert too much energy on defense trying to slow down Beers. That strategy turned out to be short lived as Alexander got herself in early foul trouble and also seemed out of sorts on the offensive end. By game’s end, she only played 7 minutes.
No worries, though. Rashunda Jones came in off the bench and immediately made her presence known. In the first quarter, Jones scored 9 points on 5-5 shooting to pace MSU out to a 21-16 lead after one.
The two teams tied each other in the second quarter, so MSU preserved the five-point advantage at halftime, 42-37. Jones had another good quarter, getting up to 16 points, but VanSlooten was struggling. At the break, the senior only had 5 points.
In the third quarter, Oklahoma came out punching and quickly seized the lead, which they held until the back end of the quarter. At that point, MSU managed to get a number of Sooners into foul trouble, including Beers. The Sooners’ substitutions allowed the Spartans to reclaim the lead briefly, but foul trouble of our own saw the home team take back control. After three, MSU was down, 57-54.
Michigan State stayed within a possession or two throughout the fourth quarter but could never get back ahead. In the final minute, MSU had to resort to intentionally fouling, but never managed to do enough on offense. In the end, Rashunda Jones, the Spartans’ leading scorer with 20, fouled out. Grace VanSlooten played her last game in the Green & White, and finished with 13 points and 7 rebounds, but also 5 turnovers and was largely outplayed by the bigger Beers.
The other seniors were Emma Shumate (9 points), Jalyn Brown (also 9), and Isaline Alexander and Marah Dykstra who both were held scoreless.
Michigan State ends their season with a 23-9 record. Could have been a different story if it were not for the late season struggles that cost us being the 4-seed and playing this opening weekend at home. On to next year…