Senior guard Nia Clouden (24) kisses the Spartan head at the Breslin Center. The Spartans held a ceremony honoring the four graduating seniors of the women's basketball team on Feb. 27, 2022.
—The Big Ten Conference announced their women's basketball All-Big selections and accolades this morning, and Michigan State had three women named.
Senior guard Nia Clouden was named to the All-Big Ten First-Team for the second consecutive year. Votes were unanimous for her selection from conference coaches.
This is her fourth year receiving a spot on the listings, grouping her within an exclusive bunch of six other Spartans. She was named to the Second-Team her sophomore year and received an All-B1G honorable mention her freshman year.
This season, Clouden averaged 20.4 points per game on 43.4% field shooting, 40.8% arc shooting and 88.8% free-throw shooting. She broke a school record for most points scored in a single game with 50 at Florida Gulf Coast on Dec. 20. She also set herself several career-highs in that game, with 46 minutes played, 17 field goals made and 28 field goals attempted.
Clouden finished the regular season fifth in the league in scoring, ninth in the league in assists and field-goal percentage and first in free-throw percentage.
Freshman guard DeeDee Hagemann and freshman forward Matilda Ekh were named to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team and received All-Big Ten honorable mentions for their first season in the green and white. Votes for Hagemann were from conference media, while Ekh was selected by conference media and coaches.
This is the first time since the 2007-08 season that MSU has had two players named to the All-Freshman squad. Hagemann was the first since Aerial Powers was named during the 2013-14 season.
This season, while Hagemann wasn't a dominant scorer and only averaged 7.9 points per game for the Spartans, she collected a total of 95 rebounds and 135 assists, putting her third in the Spartan record book. She averaged 5.4 assists per game, putting her fourth in the league and 10th in the Big Ten for assist/turnover ratio with 1.8.
In comparison, Ekh averaged 11.5 points per game on 42.1% field shooting, 39.2% arc shooting and 78.3% free-throw shooting. She was a dominant charge in key wins, for example, in their win over rival Michigan at home on Feb. 10. She started in almost every game during her first season, except their final game against Ohio State last Sunday, where she was replaced by graduate guard Laurel Jacqmain for Senior Day.
She's third in the Spartan record book for three-pointers made and eighth in the Big Ten in three-point field goal percentage.
Graduate forward Alisia Smith was also named MSU's Big Ten Sportsmanship Award honoree.
The Spartans will take the court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis as a No. 8 seed first up in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament, meeting No. 9 seed Purdue at 11:30 a.m. Thursday.
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