Michigan State women’s basketball fell short to Ohio State this Sunday in a close road game 70-65, falling to a 12-4 record and 2-3 in the Big Ten.
For most of the game, it was a back-and-forth between the two teams, especially leading into the final seconds of the game. Offensively, both teams shot similar percentages from inside the three-point line as well as outside. Where the Spartans shot 38% from the field, the Buckeyes shot 47%. The biggest difference throughout the game, however, was the lopsided number of free throws, favoring Ohio State. The Buckeyes shot 26 total free throws, converting on 13 of them, while the Spartans only shot 13 and made 10. 17 of Ohio State's 26 free throws came in the fourth quarter, including many of them in the final minutes, ultimately becoming a factor of the Buckeyes being able to pull away very late in the game.
Despite the loss, Michigan State's head coach Robyn Fralick said she loved the team’s defensive effort and grit and the team did really well throughout the entire game defensively.
“I loved our fight,” Fralick said. “I thought we had really good defensive efforts against a good team. We took really good care of the ball as well, and you know, we got to figure out a few more possessions to get on the other side of this.”
A season-high performance by graduate student guard/forward Tory Ozment helped Michigan State keep up the fight down to the wire. Ozment finished with 18 points and shot 80% from the field -- one of which was a three-pointer -- three steals and nine rebounds.
“I thought she was great on both sides of the ball," Fralick said. "(She) found a good way to finish and had some really great attacks too."
Although Ohio State is a ranked team and is hard to compete with, Fralick said that the team can learn from this game, and moving forward can improve on the mistakes that they had during this game. With this, the team will hopefully be able to make every possession valuable.
“We’re always learning, I mean I think there’s some mistakes we’ll see in a game like this,” Fralick said. "Every possession is so golden and so important, so we’ve got to find ways to take advantage of more of those."
Looking into the future, Fralick said that the team needs to work on unity as a team while playing for the entire game and not giving up in the final minutes.
“There is a togetherness piece that we’ve got to elevate throughout the whole game,” Fralick said.
The Spartans are back on the court this Wednesday against Northwestern at 6:30 p.m. at the Breslin Center.
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