Columbus, Ohio — The previous matchup between the No. 14 MSU women's basketball team and No. 6 Ohio State couldn't have been any closer.
On Monday night, the two teams couldn't have looked any farther apart.
Looking to make amends for a last-second loss to the Buckeyes on Jan. 22, the Spartans (20-8 overall, 10-5 Big Ten) let the game slip away in the opening minutes and were never able to recover. The Green and White were sent back to East Lansing with an embarrassing 69-38 loss.
MSU head coach Joanne P. McCallie said her team was beaten in nearly every phase of the game.
"They outplayed us, outfought us, out-hustled us, out-coached us … out-everythinged us — for 40 minutes," McCallie said.
Ohio State's Jessica Davenport proved to be nothing less than unstoppable.
The 6-foot-5 center lit the Spartans up for 18 first-half points, missing just two of her eight attempts from the floor.
Regardless of how MSU defended her, she found a way to score. If she caught the ball down on the block, she'd turn around for an easy layup. If MSU forced her to catch the ball farther away from the basket, she'd bury a fadeaway jump shot. When the Spartans finally tried to front her in the post, the Buckeyes simply lobbed the ball over defenders' heads, giving Davenport an uncontested lay-in.
With Davenport leading the charge, Ohio State (23-2, 13-1) went into halftime with a 42-23 lead.
Davenport scored just four more points in the second half, but the outcome had long been decided. The Buckeyes held MSU to just 15 second-half points and eventually widened the lead to as much as 34.
The Spartans were just as helpless on offense as they were on defense. They went just 10-for-34 from the field in the first half and 6-for-22 in the second half, with no shot coming easily. Davenport either blocked or challenged nearly every shot the Spartans took in the paint, forcing MSU's best post players — senior forward Liz Shimek and freshman forward Aisha Jefferson — to settle for long-jump shots.
"We were pretty pathetic, in terms of our execution and also our shot selection," McCallie said.
Sophomore center Laura Hall was MSU's lone bright. She hit a few jump and hook shots for the Spartans, finishing with a team-high seven points and grabbing three rebounds.
"Laura Hall was probably the only player on our team that battled in the appropriate fashion," McCallie said. "We had one. There was one."
Junior guard Rene Haynes also scored seven points for the Spartans.
Davenport was Ohio State's leading scorer, finishing with 22 points.
Brandie Hoskins put 14 points on the board for the Buckeyes, and Debbie Merrill was close behind with 13.
The Spartans finish their regular season Thursday at Michigan. The game tips off at 7 p.m. at Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor. At the last meeting, the Spartans came away with a 77-44 blowout victory. Michigan is at the bottom of the Big Ten standings and has yet to win a conference game.
Ethan Conley can be reached at conleyet@msu.edu.
