After a series of slow starts to games the past two weeks, it was the “lackluster energy” head coach Suzy Merchant said she saw against Eastern Michigan on Saturday that motivated her to have a talk with her team.
Senior forward Lykendra Johnson said Merchant challenged her seniors to take accountability and Johnson said she took the message personally.
Johnson knocked down the team’s first two shots to help the Spartans (7-3) start Tuesday’s game against the Detroit (1-7) on a 7-0 run before cruising to a 64-41 at Breslin Center victory in a game the Spartans never trailed.
Junior guard Jasmine Thomas led MSU in scoring with 14 points, but it was the balanced play of Johnson, who finished with 13 points, 12 rebounds and four blocked shots, that got the team going.
“Coach challenged the seniors to hold the team accountable of what we are capable of and she believes if we start off right the team will start off right,” Johnson said. “I took that as a challenge and we answered it.”
Although Johnson said her conditioning isn’t quite at the level it needs to be, she said she’s “getting there” and expects to be 100 percent before the conference season gets underway.
It’s Johnson’s senior leadership that Merchant said is helping a young team get closer to its potential.
“It was nice to see her step up like that,” Merchant said. “That’s kind of what senior leaders need to be able to do to make sure that we get off on the right foot. I thought we had much better energy for sure.”
Merchant decided to stick with the backcourt of Thomas and freshman guard Kiana Johnson to start the game, bringing senior guard and leading scorer Porsche Poole off the bench.
Kiana Johnson finished with eight assists, four steals and only one turnover and said she and Thomas have formed a strong bond from playing together.
“We have a good chemistry,” she said. “We both have an understanding of … what coach expects out of us, so where I lack she picks up and where she lacks I pick up.”
MSU started Tuesday’s game with the energy and tenacity they’ve tended to reserve for the second half and part of that can be attributed to the play of Kiana Johnson and Thomas.
Both players like to force turnovers to create opportunities to push the ball up the floor and Thomas said that’s part of the reason they play so well together.
“I just feel like I have my partner in crime on defense,” Thomas said. “She’s a great point guard. She likes to push the ball (and) I like to run the floor so I just feel like (it’s) a good combo.”
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