MSU cruises past U-M in Big Ten women's tourney 69-49

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Exactly one month ago, the Michigan women's basketball team went to Breslin Center and throttled Michigan State for the second time this season, building a 22-point second-half lead. MSU freshman Lexi Gussert was terrible.

"When we played them last time, I think I shot 1-for-10 in the triangle-and-two and that sat with me for a long time," Gussert said. "Pretty mad coming into the game, to be honest with you. Took my anger out on them, I guess."

Anger management, indeed.

MSU proved it was much more than the Aerial Powers and Tori Jankoska Show when it drilled Michigan, 69-49, today at the Sears Centre Arena in the Big Ten tournament.

The ninth-seeded Spartans face No.1 seed Maryland at 12:30 p.m. Friday in a quarterfinal game.

Becca Mills (11 points) hit a basket and then Gussert (16 points) canned the first of her four three-point bombs to show eighth-seeded U-M (16-14, 8-10) that a gimmick triangle-and-two defense designed to stop Powers and Jankoska was not going to work this time.

The Spartans held a 10-4 lead when they punched U-M in the mouth and ran off 12 straight points, with Gussert finishing the run with a pair of three-pointers for a 22-4 lead less than seven minutes into the game.

"Coach Merchant said to keep that last game in mind, and every time I thought about it, just really got me mad about how I couldn't hit shots when we needed people to step up," Gussert said. "So I've been patiently waiting to come out against them, and I think I did that."

Twelve minutes into the game, Powers had scored only two points because for the first time in a long time MSU didn't need her to look to score on every possession.

"Coming off the two losses from (earlier) in the season, that really amped us up to be ready to kick some butt today," Powers said. "And we came out on fire."

This was the fourth win in five games for MSU (16-14, 7-11), which has only five scholarship players available as well as two walk-ons and a player from the MSU volleyball team.

Yet, the Spartans looked dramatically better than the team that U-M beat twice earlier this season. Walk-on guard Anna Morrissey contributed seven rebounds and six assists with only one turnover in 37 minutes, and walk-on Cara Miller nailed a pair of three-point bombs and pulled down four rebounds in 18 minutes.

"I just think everybody has improved tremendously from the beginning of the Big Ten season," Jankoska said. "Starting with the Michigan game last time we played them they went triangle-and-two, and today Cara hit big shots, Lexi hit some big shots and Becca hit some threes. So that made them (get) out of their triangle-and-two and they really had to play us man. And we had an answer for any defense they threw at us."

Better yet, MSU had a defense for U-M. Mills, with help from freshman Kennedy Johnson, was tremendous in limiting 6-foot-3 Cyesha Goree to five points on 2-for-13 shooting.

"We knew if she gets us sealed in deeper she's a really good post player and if we got her a little further up we'd have a better shot at walling her up, making her take a tough shot," Mills said. "She took some tough shots and they didn't fall for her. I'm really proud of Kennedy, she stepped up."

MSU led 46-22 at halftime, and U-M began the second half with seven straight points, but then failed to score on its next nine possessions and fell behind 55-29 with 11 minutes left to play.

MSU coach Suzy Merchant gambled by not zeroing in exclusively on stopping Goree, and it paid off.

"Offensively, I got good touches and kind of got good looks," Goree said. "They didn't really double me, I just couldn't finish around the rim."

Because Mills and Kennedy were able to play Goree straight up, the perimeter players could concentrate on guards Katelynn Flaherty (5-for-14, 14 points) and Siera Thompson (2-for-13, five points).

"The kids that bothered us the most in the past, Flaherty had shot 50% from the field against us and 62% ""from the arc, which is unacceptable," Merchant said. "Thompson sort of had her way with us almost every time we played that kid, even last year. And then Goree, she's just a handful."

U-M hit only 19 of 70 shots (27.15%) while MSU was 24 of 48 (50%).

"They made shots early, and I thought we got a little bit tight," said U-M coach Kim Barnes Arico. "We couldn't get anything to fall. And we always felt like" we were battling back from a position of being down, because we were."