Sophomore forward Lykendra Johnson fights for a rebound with Buckeye centers Andrea Walker and Jantel Lavender in MSU’s 65-62 loss to Ohio State on Saturday. Lavender had 20 points and 13 rebounds.
Coming into Saturday’s game with Ohio State, the MSU women’s basketball team was focused on stopping two Buckeyes — point guard Samantha Prahalis and center Jantel Lavender.
When the final buzzer sounded on Ohio State’s 65-62 victory, the numbers weren’t pretty.
Prahalis (career-high 32 points) and Lavender (20 points) combined for 80 percent of the Buckeyes’ offense as they rallied from an 11-point first-half deficit to win.
“They make them go,” MSU head coach Suzy Merchant said. “Coming in, that wasn’t a surprise to us. In the league, (Ohio State) had taken about 250 shots and those two had taken 125 of them — so half their shots. I did think we did a nice job of not letting other people get away from us, so it was sort of pick your poison.”
Whether Merchant decided to play Prahalis and Lavender straight up or double them, she was playing with fire.
Coming into the game, Ohio State guard Brittany Johnson was a 52.3 percent shooter from deep and forward Sarah Schulze hit 47.6 percent of her outside shots. Saturday, they combined to go 3-of-10 from 3-point range, but their makes were big.
“Prahalis is a very good player and she’s hard to contain,” Merchant said. “If you help off of her a lot, she’s going to make everybody else that much better.”
Prahalis had a career day. Her 32 points were nine more than her previous high. She set highs in field goals made (10) and field goal attempts (20), tied a career best with four 3-pointers and came one free-throw attempt shy of that mark with 13.
Entering the game, Prahalis was tied for first nationally with 140 assists, which also was 73 more than the next closest Big Ten player. On the downside, she was shooting 27.3 percent from 3-point range. She hit 40 percent of her 3-pointers Saturday and 60 percent of two-point field goals, where her season average coming in was 50 percent.
“The game just came to me like that,” Prahalis said. “They needed me to score today, I’m going to score. Other games I might have to pass, so I’m going to pass to my shooters.”
Not only did Prahalis do all that, she also outrebounded MSU senior center Allyssa DeHaan six-to-four.
“I think it means so much that you have a point guard that is as feisty and as competitive and as fun to play with as Sam,” Lavender said.
“You can’t beat it. She’s real competitive and she’ll do anything for the team. She’ll take a charge, she’ll do whatever it takes to win and that’s what you need at the point guard position. And she did a great job.”
Lavender, the two-time reigning Big Ten Player of the Year and a 70 percent free-throw shooter coming into the game, knocked down all 10 of her tries from the charity stripe.
“The disappointing thing is that half of Jantel’s points came from the foul line and those are ones we just can’t give her,” Merchant said. “I thought we did a nice job of making tough shots for her. She was 5-of-15, which isn’t really great … but she did a nice job of forcing the issue where we’d get a foul call.”
Together, the two comprise the league’s best pick-and-roll combo and are one of the top duos in the nation.
“They run it really well,” sophomore forward Lykendra Johnson said. “Prahalis, she knows where to find Jantel, she knows where she’s going to be at, if she’s going to flare, if she’s going to roll, if she’s going to do anything. She does a good job of reading her, just flat out reading her.”
Prahalis and Lavender dominated Ohio State’s offense so much that no other player scored in the final 17 minutes of the game. Both played all 40 minutes.
“If you’re going to run a lot of pick-and-rolls with two great players, you have to defend it,” Ohio State head coach Jim Foster said. “If you’re going to extend and guard our shooters, they can just play. It’s pick your poison. The teams that clogged the lane, I mean, Brittany Johnson and Sarah Schulze, Brittany’s shooting 55 from three or something and Sarah’s 40-something, so what are you going to do? You’ve got to make a decision and their decision was to guard us out and let (Prahalis and Lavender) play. I’m sure the next time we play them it’ll be different.”
In the crowd
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Games against Ohio State always are big for the Spartans and their fans. Saturday was no different as 12,412 fans came to Breslin Center to watch MSU battle the Buckeyes — the third largest crowd in program history.
“It was a great crowd,” Merchant said. “I thought they helped us a couple different times when we needed a boost and maybe helped us get a stop or two down the stretch. I’m disappointed for them we didn’t pull it out — it wasn’t 65-62 Spartans, but I really appreciated the crowd.”
