Thursday, April 25, 2024

Preview: MSU women's basketball hosting Purdue Fort Wayne

November 10, 2022
<p>Sophomore guard DeeDee Hagemann passes the ball during the Spartans&#x27; home opener against Delaware State on Nov. 7.</p>

Sophomore guard DeeDee Hagemann passes the ball during the Spartans' home opener against Delaware State on Nov. 7.

Photo by Devin Anderson-Torrez | The State News

After trouncing Delaware State earlier this week, the Michigan State women's basketball team will take on Purdue Fort Wayne Thursday night in its second game of the season.

The game will be MSU's second of a five game home stand for the Spartans and will serve as the annual Hoops for Troops game.

Purdue Fort Wayne, led by second year Head Coach Maria Marchesano, won its season opener 90-45 against Goshen on Monday. Junior guard Amellia Bromenschenkel had a career-high 22 points on 9-of-14 shooting while also leading the team in rebounds with six. Three other Mastodons scored in double figures with junior guard Destinee Marshall putting up 11 and senior guard Shayla Sellers and sophomore guard Audra Emmerson both adding 10 points.

This will just be the fifth time MSU will have faced the Mastodons, with the last matchup in 2013 ending in a Purdue Fort Wayne victory. The Spartans had won the three previous matchups.

After leading MSU in points in their win over Delaware State, junior guard Gabby Elliot said they have been cleaning up some of the things they did not do so well in their first game of the season.

"Being aggressive and staying aggressive on the defensive end," Elliot said. "And that's pretty much it, just resting up and getting ready to turn it back around."

With this game being the first of five over the next nine days, expect minutes to be spread widely throughout the lineup. Head Coach Suzy Merchant thinks her squad's depth will be key for these upcoming matchups.

"I think that depth is something people have to buy into," Merchant said. "People that have be okay with the fact that night in and night out, maybe there'll be times when they're playing 25, 30 minutes if they're playing really well. We have to have the ability to spread things out when you're playing a lot of games or traveling a lot. We went through a season where we have like three or four post players sometimes at one time out of position. People were literally like dying out there from exhaustion. And so we got to buy into the fact that depth is a positive thing. And then who emerges from that as a consistent player of the ones that will definitely build the rotation around."

Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. at the Breslin Center.

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