Michigan State women's basketball falters after strong start in loss to No. 18 Michigan

EAST LANSING — Behind senior Moira Joiner, the Michigan State women's basketball team got off to a strong start, feeding off the energy of the largest crowd of the season at Breslin Center.

The Spartans, who were still without head coach Suzy Merchant, built a double-digit advantage and never trailed during the opening half while looking poised to pick up one of their best wins of the season.

But the second half was far different. And the final result was an all too familiar one for the Spartans, who dropped their third straight, suffering a 77-67 setback to rival and No. 18-ranked Michigan.

"I'm just so tired of losing," said MSU sophomore, Matilda Ekh, who had 12 points. "We're almost always like right there and it's just frustrating that we keep losing and we can never finish games."

The Spartans (11-12, 3-10 Big Ten) were playing their third straight game without Merchant, who suffered a medical incident while being involved in a one-car crash Jan. 28. Associate head coach Dean Lockwood was again the acting head coach.

Michigan (19-5, 9-4) recorded its sixth win in seven games in the series while playing without one of its top scorers in Laila Phelia.

Leigha Brown had a game-high 29 points and 12 rebounds, while Maddie Nolan scored 22 to lead the Wolverines as they completed the regular-season sweep of the Spartans.

"We knew coming here with the rivalry that it was going to be a tough one," Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. "Leigha said her heart is still racing because of the intensity in which they started the game. They came out just on fire and intense and playing hard and it took us a minute. Thankfully, we were able to adjust and finish really strong."

Joiner had 12 points — all in the first half — and six rebounds and six steals while joining Ekh as one of three Spartans to score in double figures. DeeDee Hagemann added 11 points, nine assists and six steals while playing all 40 minutes for MSU, which led by as much 12 in the first two quarters before being plagued by a cold-shooting second half.

The Spartans made just 10 of 40 shots from the field after halftime while being outscored 44-27. MSU missed more shots (53) Sunday than Michigan took the entire game (49).

"Our margin of error small and you can't have too much of that in this type of league," Lockwood said. "This is arguably the best women's basketball conference in the country this year.

"The consistency piece — we have to become more consistent."

Hagemann hit a half-court 3 to pull the Spartans within one entering the final quarter. But that momentum didn't carry over.

Michigan scored 10 straight to open the fourth quarter with a 3 by Nolan forcing MSU to call timeout. The Spartans got as close as six, but were ultimately plagued by a nearly six-minute scoring drought.

"I thought our third and fourth quarters we really deteriorated and we deviated too much from how we wanted to play and what we were doing," Lockwood said. "I think frustration set in when we're missing shots. It's just a tough thing.

"We were missing shots and we were struggling and rather than kind of getting back to who we were and what we did with success we kind of deviated from that and we didn't realize how far off course we were straying in those moments. That's tough to get back against a good team. Michigan is a good team for a lot of reasons. They've got a great record and they're nationally ranked and it's tough to do that."

Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @brian_calloway.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Michigan State women's basketball falls to rival Michigan