Sophomore forward Kalisha Keane (32) passes the ball to freshman forward Courtney Schiffauer on Sunday during the women’s basketball exhibition game against Grand Valley State.
The MSU women’s basketball team capped off its exhibition season with a convincing 84-44 win against Grand Valley State on Sunday at Breslin Center — using their superior strength, quickness and depth to pull away from the Lakers despite turning the ball over 25 times.
Grand Valley State hung with the Spartans early in the first half, trailing 20-16 with 6:23 remaining in the half, but the Spartans went on a 15-3 run to go into halftime up 35-19.
The Spartans came out of halftime with the same intensity — continuing their defensive pressure and pushing the ball up court mercilessly — as they expanded their lead by 30 points with 13:41 remaining until eventually winning by 40 points.
“We attacked and got after the offensive boards,” said sophomore guard Cetera Washington, who scored 11 points in the second half on various put-backs and transition layups.
“After the first half, we noticed our bigs were down there pushing people out of the way, but we weren’t getting any of the long rebounds,” Washington said. “We went in the locker room, talked about it and came out in the second half and tried to get after it.”
Junior forward Aisha Jefferson led MSU with 16 points and eight rebounds, while Washington and junior center Lauren Aitch scored 15 each.
Although the Spartans handily defeated both Grand Valley State and Saginaw Valley State — who they beat 97-32 on Thursday — an area of concern for the team is turnovers, specifically at the point guard position.
Senior guard Mia Johnson is out for one to two weeks after getting her knee scoped Wednesday, while sophomore guard Brittney Thomas — who suffered a broken hand last week in practice — will miss four to six weeks.
With the absence of Thomas and Johnson, freshman guard Porsche Poole is the only true point guard on MSU’s roster. Until Johnson, and eventually Thomas return, head coach Suzy Merchant will have to rely on junior shooting guard Mandy Piechowski and sophomore guard/forward Kalisha Keane to run the offense.
“I can certainly see that we have a lot of improvement (to be made) on the offensive end in terms of turning the ball over,” said Merchant, who added her team’s goal is to have 14 turnovers or less per game.
“I think if we can clean up some of our silly turnovers, keep attacking inside-out (we’ll improve). It’s a starting point — there’s a lot of things we can improve on and certainly need to before Friday.”
The Spartans begin the regular season at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Breslin against Niagara.
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