Michigan State Eyes Big Ten Championship With No. 6 Seed
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No. 24-ranked Michigan State women’s basketball learned its path to making a run for a conference championship on Monday, landing the No. 6 seed in the Big Ten Tournament.
The Spartans (21-8, 11-7 Big Ten) will have a first-round bye and face No. 11 Iowa or No. 14 Wisconsin in the second round on Thursday. If Michigan State defeats the Hawkeyes or the Badgers, Ohio State will be waiting for the Spartans in the third round as the No. 3 seed.
The transition into conference tournament competition means the end of regular season rankings. MSU dropped in the final regular season AP NCAA Women’s Basketball rankings, moving down a spot after being ranked No. 23 last week. Despite the change in seeding, the squad has now made it 14 straight weeks ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll.
The team played its final game of the regular season on Saturday against Minnesota, defeating the Golden Gophers 73-58 on Senior Night. The Spartans didn’t execute the final stretch of games how they envisioned, losing five of their last nine games after starting the season 11-0 — the best start in program history — and being ranked as high as the No. 15 spot in the country.
“Over the last two weeks, all we’ve played are tournament games,” said Coach Robyn Fralick after the team's win over Minnesota. “The entire end of our schedule has been all tournament teams. I think we’re going into March with no false understandings of what it feels like, what it looks like [and] what this level of team that we’ve been going against feels like to compete against.”
The Spartans certainly should be proud of their play in the Big Ten this season, playing conference basketball alongside four nationally ranked programs in USC, UCLA, Ohio State and Maryland.
Junior forward Grace VanSlooten, senior guard Julia Ayrault and junior guard Theryn Hallock were truly MSU’s big three the entire season, leading the team in scoring, with VanSlooten putting up a team-high 15.6 points a night. Ayrault finished the regular season averaging 14.7 points and leading the team with 41 blocks on the season, seventh in the Big Ten. Hallock added 13.9 points per game on 41 percent shooting.
The Spartans must lean on the contributions of VanSlooten, Ayrault and Hallock in order to make a push for a conference championship against the Big Ten’s tough competition.
Michigan State will play its second-round match against Iowa/Wisconsin at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on Thursday at approximately 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT, airing on the Big Ten Network and FOX Sports App.
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Khassim Diakhate pursued his Bachelor's degree in journalism at Loyola Marymount University. He is passionate about the world of journalism and storytelling. He joins the On SI team, having previously worked at NBCUniversal, ESPN, and TMZ Sports.