Freshman guard Thomas brings added dimension to Spartans

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All season, the MSU women’s basketball team has looked to its guards to be bigger scoring threats and offensively aggressive.

Enter freshman Jasmine Thomas.

Following her career-best performance last Sunday against Penn State, Thomas appears to be in line for more minutes down the stretch as MSU looks to climb back from a rough start to Big Ten play.

“She’s probably the closest thing we have to a triple-threat scoring guard that can create for herself,” MSU head coach Suzy Merchant said. “We just need to get her on the floor a little more and live with her mistakes.”

Against the Lady Lions, Thomas poured in a career-high 19 points, her sixth double-digit scoring effort of the season. More notably, she hit five of her eight shots from the field in a game where only two other Spartans hit at least 40 percent of their shots. The game bumped her season scoring average to 6.4 points entering Thursday’s game with Purdue.

In a stretch where the coaching staff has criticized the players for being all talk and no action, Thomas has been one of the only players to respond.

“It was a pretty big step,” Thomas said of the Penn State game. “It showed not only myself but the coaches that I’m able to step up if needed. It gave me a confidence boost.”

Thomas has seen her minutes fluctuate, but Merchant said Tuesday that Thomas certainly will be getting more of a look as the team struggles on offense. In her first 18 games, Thomas averaged 18.4 minutes. She played 23 against the Lady Lions and saw 28 minutes, a career high, in games against Florida Gulf Coast and Washington.

“She’s played a lot of minutes,” Merchant said. “She’s played a lot in some pretty key games and she’s been successful for us against some tough competition. I think she’s ready for it. She did a great job against Penn State and has proven that. We just need guards that can score and attack the basket and make people around them better. That’s one thing she does a good job of.”

Thomas, a state high jump champion at Flint Hamady High School, has wowed fans with her athleticism this season. Whether driving to the basket or leaping high in the air for a defensive rebound, Thomas has been impressive.

Now, Thomas is focusing on the little things — becoming a more consistent player and not worrying about making a mistake.

“The biggest thing for her is she’s had to learn to quit putting her head down when she makes a mistake,” Merchant said.

“I think she gets on herself. I think she wants to be a perfectionist, which you like kids that want to play at a high level, but you’ve always got to think about the next play, especially at this level. In high school you could probably put your head down and not worry about it for a quarter, but here you have to worry about the next possession, and I think she’s done a better job of fighting through that.”

Thomas admits she is a “bit of a perfectionist to a point,” but is working on not hanging her head after a mistake.

“It’s definitely been something I’ve gone through all throughout basketball,” she said. “It’s just something that’s not needed in college. Once you make a mistake, you have to get over it because there’s no time to dwell on it.”

Thomas is improving each game, however, which makes the freshman mistakes easier to deal with, especially if she’s providing a much-needed scoring presence.

Senior guard Mandy Piechowski said Thomas is a gamer and “hits another mode” when game day comes.

“I think she’s really grown up, learned to talk a little bit more as a point guard out there,” Piechowski said. “We still need her to communicate a little bit more for us, but she’s definitely making big strides and she has a bright future here.”

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