Michigan State Women’s Basketball Sets Record in Blowout Win
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In its first game of the 2025-2026 season, Michigan State Women’s basketball had a historic night against Mercyhurst.
The Spartans absolutely dominated Mercyhurst with a final score of 125 - 39. This would be the most points scored in program history while head coach Robyn Fralick begins her third season as head coach. The 125 points were the largest in program history, passing the 116 points the Spartans scored against Niagara back on Nov 14th, 2008.
Seven Spartans would score over 13 points, as Seniors Grace VanSlooten and Theryn Hallock led the way with 18 and 19. The redshirt sophomore Kennedy Blair also had herself a double-double with 14 points and led the team in assists with 12.
It wasn't just the players from last year's squad who had themselves great nights. In her first collegiate game, freshman guard Amy Terrian had herself a night as she had 15 points and was a three-point specialist, going 5-8 from beyond the arc.
Back in the offseason, Fralick had brought in two key transfer players with junior Rushanda Jones from Purdue and senior guard Jalyn Brown from Arizona State. In their first games as Spartans, they did not disappoint as they had a combined 28 points with Jones having 15 and Brown having 13 coming off the Bench.
From the opening tipoff, the Spartans were always running up and down the court trying to push the pace and looking to get easy buckets in transition. Michigan State had a clear size advantage over Mercyhurst as the Sartans doubled Mercyhurst in rebounds with a 39-18 difference.
Michigan State went 26-43 from the field and 6-10 from beyond the arc in the first half. The second half had MSU taking fewer shots as they went 23-36 from the field and shooting a less efficient 7-18 from three point range.
Making a Statement
Michigan State was ranked as the 23rd-ranked team in the AP preseason poll. While that sounds good, they were, however, left out of the top five in the Big Ten as UCLA, USC, Michigan, Maryland and Ohio State were all given more votes in both media and coaches polls. It's also worth noting that Ohio State was left out of the top 25 ranking.
Grace Vanslooten shared her thoughts on the snubbing by saying, “I don’t know about disrespect, I just kind of see it as maybe they’re sleeping on us a little bit, but honestly, I kind of rather have it that way so we can go in with them not expecting us to come in and beat them. We’re just going to go out there and play our game and show that we should be top five in the Big Ten.”
With a win like this in its first game of the season and breaking records, every team should take note that Michigan State Women's Basketball is here, and they can compete with anyone in the Big Ten.
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