Following the MSU women’s basketball team’s fourth straight loss on Thursday, head coach Suzy Merchant sat at the podium, wondering aloud where her team that opened the conference season with four straight wins had gone.
On Sunday, Merchant said she might have found her squad.
Behind a career-high 32 points from senior guard Porsché Poole, the MSU women’s basketball team (13-9 overall, 5-4 Big Ten) knocked off No. 18 Penn State (16-5, 6-3) 83-77.
After struggling to score the past four games, Merchant went with a new starting lineup including Poole and sophomore guard Klarissa Bell, and the difference was noticeable immediately.
MSU jumped out to a 10-5 lead, with four of five starters scoring in the opening run, and the team playing with a renewed energy and sense of purpose offensively.
After trailing early in each of the past four games while struggling to score, Merchant said the strong early start was crucial.
“We scored 34 points in the first half, and as simple as that sounds, it matters,” she said. “You can’t dig yourself a hole, and it helps put pressure on the other team to make shots … so it was important for us to get off to a good start.”
But the Nittany Lions didn’t go away, responding with a 6-0 run of their own to tie the game and end the half on an 11-4 run to cut MSU’s lead to 34-33.
Maggie Lucas led the way for Penn State, finishing the game with a team-high 21 points and helped the Nittany Lions to their largest lead of the game, 43-40 with 16:24 to go.
After seeing the lead they’d built for most of the game disappear, Poole and senior forward Lykendra Johnson said they knew it was time for them to take control of the game.
The Spartans went on a 12-3 run to go up by six, 52-46, with 12:33 to go, forcing a Penn State timeout.
Poole and Johnson combined for nine of MSU’s 12 points in the run and weren’t done there.
Following the timeout, Penn State cut MSU’s lead to two points before the Spartans went on an 8-1 run to push MSU in front 60-51, giving MSU its largest lead of the game.
Poole scored all eight points in the run and shot 10-for-15 in the game along with grabbing six rebounds and dishing out six assists.
Johnson finished with a double-double, 16 points and 12 rebounds, and freshman guard Kiana Johnson added 13 points, six assists and four rebounds.
But Penn State had one more run in them, scoring six unanswered points to go up 72-69 with just under four minutes remaining in the game.
With the shot clock running out and MSU down by one, the Spartans looked to their newest starter for help, and she proved to be the difference.
Bell drove to the basket and completed a 3-point play to give MSU the lead with 2:53 to go and followed it up with another layup to put MSU up 78-75 with less than a minute to go in the game to secure the win.
“I was really excited about (getting to start),” Bell said. “I just tried to keep my excitement down, focus in on the game and have confidence.”
Bell was also critical in containing Lucas, limiting her to only five second-half points and holding her scoreless for the game’s final eight minutes, after she had scored 28 second-half points against MSU when the teams played earlier this season.
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After calling out her teammates for not playing to their abilities against Illinois, Poole said she believes the victory over Penn State could be a turning point for her team.
“We scored 83 points tonight, and it just shows that other people can score,” she said. “We’ve just got to be aggressive and not on our heels. (Penn State is) a top-25 team, one of the best teams in the country, one of the best teams in the league, and if we play like that against them, we can play like that against any team in the country.”
