3&Out: No. 17 Michigan State nets 'signature win' against No. 21 Iowa

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michigan State was in danger of having its biggest women’s basketball party in years spoiled by the biggest name on the home schedule. But then the Spartans dug in and delivered, as they’ve been known to do this season. 

The Spartans battled back from a 9-point deficit with 8:49 remaining to defeat Iowa, 68-66, Sunday afternoon before 5,939 at the Breslin Center.

No. 17-ranked Michigan State extended the longest season-opening unbeaten streak in program history to 10-0 and 1-0 in the Big Ten. No. 21 Iowa fell to 9-2 and 0-1.

The game marked the first time since January of 2021 that two Top 25 women’s basketball teams played in the Breslin Center. On that day, No. 23 Michigan State lost, 93-87, to No. 12 Maryland. But Sunday’s script ended far happier for the Spartans.

Michigan State head coach Robyn Fralick is 31-9 overall in her second year as the Spartans’ head coach. She has never had a win like this at Michigan State. And this one seems to promise that there are more to come.

“It’s a signature win,” she said. “Iowa has been to back-to-back National Championship Games. It’s our first Big Ten game. Our game last year (against Iowa) came down to the last possession, like this game. 

“Last year, when we played top teams, we played them really tight but we had that next step to finish the game and win the game. I thought tonight our team, our program, took another step in finishing the game.”

The scene in the locker room afterward?

“It was a water fest,” Fralick said. “They were fired up. They were chanting for each other. This team loves each other. This team doesn’t care how it happens, they just want to win. And they just want to find ways to do it together.

“When you get a group that doesn’t have a personal agenda but has a team agenda, good things happen.”

Caitlin Clark no longer plays for Iowa. But two of the Hawkeyes’ top four scorers from last year are back, and five of the top 10, plus star Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen, who is averaging 19 points per game.

But Michigan State held Olsen to 4-of-17 shooting, including an errant, fall-away 12-footer against Michigan State’s Julia Ayrault in the final seconds which could have given Iowa the victory. But the Spartans’ defense was too good all afternoon, and especially on that last possession, saving the game after Michigan State had missed three free throws, and another due to a lane violation, in the final

“There’s a lot of ways to win and we keep finding different ways,” Fralick said. “Today, I thought we really did it on the defensive end. When the game was on the line, we played really good defense.”

Ayrault (6-2, Gr., Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.) led Michigan State with 19 points.

Forward Grace VanSlooten (6-3, Jr., Toledo) scored 14 for the Spartans.

“I get asked a lot of times: Did you think you’d be 10-0?” Fralick said. “I’m like, ‘We’re just trying to go 1-0.’ 

“The way we see things is now we’re just going to worry about our next game. I mean we really can see it one at a time.”

Next up are games against Montana on Thursday and Alabama on Friday in the West Palm Beach Classic in Florida.

Michigan State’s next home game is on New Year’s Day at 2 p.m. against Purdue.

Three takeaways from the Spartans’ riveting victory over the Hawkeyes on Sunday:

1. NYLA HAMPTON ‘CHANGED THE GAME’

Nyla Hampton, a tough, sturdy, 5-foot-7 graduate transfer guard from Huber Heights, Ohio, scored all 13 of her points in the fourth quarter, shooting 5-of-6 in the final stanza. She scored on drive after drive, taking advantage of one-on-one defense, with no Hawkeye help defenders stepping in to stop her route to the rim. 

Hampton ranks eighth on the team in scoring at 5.4 points per game, but on this day, she took over when Michigan State needed it. She didn’t go hunting for her shots. The game just flowed in her direction, and she was willing and able to capitalize.

“She changed the game,” Fralick said. “She is really good at attacking with both hands. I thought she had a good feel for people staying home and not helping, and when to attack.”

Fralick began recruiting Hampton to Bowling Green when Hampton was 16-years-old. When Fralick left Bowling Green to take the Michigan State job, Hampton transferred to Ball State. And then this year, she reunited with Fralick in East Lansing. 

Hampton is a two-time Mid-American Conference Defensive Player of the Year. Fralick has assembled a team of basketball thieves, who specialize in steals as part of the Spartans’ full-court press. 

Hampton dug deeper into her talents to help deliver victory on this day. 

“One of my favorite things about Nyla is she is very poised,” Fralick said. “She knows what we want and she does a very good job of getting us into things we need to get into. She has a feel for when to pass, when to attack, when to score.

“With this group, it’s been different people on different nights. We have counted on different lineups at critical times, but this group, all they care about is how do we do this together? And we have to keep that, because that’s a really sweep spot to be.”

2. FRALICK’S CALM OPTIMISM WORKS

Iowa led for the entire third quarter, and the first three minutes of the fourth. But the Spartans went on a 14-0 run – sparked by Hampton and MSU’s boa constrictor full-court press, which seems to get better and tighter as a game progresses.

Three weeks ago, Michigan State came back from a 16-point deficit to beat California on Nov. 26 en route to the Acrisure Classic championship. The Spartans tapped into that spirit against Iowa.

“I remember coming into one of our time outs in the fourth quarter,” Fralick said, “and it was like, ‘This is what we do, right? This is why we do what we do. We don’t slow down now. We crank up our pressure. We stay with it.’”

The Spartans didn’t need any convincing.

“There’s a belief in it because we’ve consistently seen in fourth quarters we’ve been able to have some breakthroughs,” Fralick said. “But you have to be persistent with it. You can’t think it’s immediate. It works, but you have to do it over and over and over again. Our team did a great job staying with it.”

3. FITTING CLOSURE FOR AYRAULT 

Ayrault is Michigan State’s best all-around player, but not the Spartans’ defensive stopper. However, she came through with two clutch defensive plays to snuff out Iowa’s last possession.

She blocked Sydney Affolter’s driving shot attempt with :10 seconds left. After the block, the normally stoic Ayrault gave a Dikembe Motumbo wag of her finger to further insight the biggest, loudest Breslin crowd of the year to this point. 

She didn’t remember that wag after the game, but everyone recalled the tight defense she put on Iowa’s Olsen as the deadly medium-range jump shooter front-rimmed the Hawkeyes’ final attempt with :01 second left.

The shot missed, Michigan State rebounded, and Hampton made 1-of-2 foul shots at the other end to provide the margin of victory.

Ayrault was a deserving defensive hero. The 1,000-point career scorer has stuck with the program since 2019, through COVID, through a coaching change and the unplanned retirement of former Spartan boss Suzy Merchant, through a 2021-22 season which Ayrault missed due to a left foot injury. Through last season when she had to play center, and play defense on centers, because all of Michigan State’s post players became injured.

She became an excellent player along the way. She was first-team All-Big Ten last year, averaging 15.4 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. With savvy interior scoring and sizzling 43.3 percent shooting from 3-point range, she is leading Michigan State at 16.7 points per game this year. 

But her defense on Iowa’s final possession secured victory. 

“Julia did a great job guarding and I’m so proud of her, because that’s come a long way,” Fralick said. “Her ability to guard different matchups and do it without fouling and keeping people in front, at the end of the game, to block the shot against number 3 (Affolter) and getting switched onto Lucy on the BLOB (baseline in-bound play), and made her take a really tough shot, I give her credit for that. That’s very much improved, even from a year ago.”

Michigan State leads the Big Ten in scoring offense, but Spartan defense dominated this game. Michigan State held Iowa to 36.5 percent shooting, and forced 23 turnovers. 

The impressive thing about Michigan State’s full-court pressure is that they change it up enough to keep the opponent guessing. Sometimes it’s straight man-to-man pressure. Sometimes they send a run-and-jump trapper at the ball. 

Sometimes, pressing teams can lose focus or intensity in halfcourt defense. But Michigan State doesn’t have that problem. Michigan State never paid in the back end for applying full-court pressure. And they never messed themselves up. They always seemed to complete their defensive rotations and settle into tough half-court defense after applying pesky full-court defense. To execute against Michigan State, you have to beat them twice on each possession – once against the press, and once in the halfcourt. 

“We didn’t have much momentum at all throughout the middle of the game but we stuck with it,” Fralick said. “We kept doing what we do, then we eventually got that breakthrough in the fourth quarter.”

COMP’S TAKE: TWO-WAY RESPECT WAS REFRESHING

It was nice to see two well-drilled teams engage in rock hard competition, with plenty of bumps and

After all the repulsive childishness we saw during the Ohio State-Michigan football game, and other rivalries on that day two weeks ago, this weekend of sports – buoyed by the Army-Navy football game – seemed clean and proper. This Michigan State vs Iowa women’s basketball game provided a show of great sportswomanship for those in attendance.

Ayrault’s little Mutombo finger wag was done with a smile to the crowd, not at a player. There were no attempts to demean.

When Iowa post player Hannah Stuelke anticipated a Michigan State play and shut Ayrault down on one occasion, Ayrault actually complimented Stuelke during a stoppage in play.

“I said, ‘Good job, that was good defense,’” Ayrault said.

These teams scrapped hard. But Ayrault admitted that many of these women that she was battling against on this day are people she rooted for when the Hawkeyes, led by Clark, advanced to the National Championship Game last spring.

Ayrault’s thoughts about the Hawkeyes on this day?
“They did a good job,” Ayrault said. “And they were very kind.”

Very kind? I don’t think I’ve ever heard those words about another team during post-game interviews.

“Just chatting with Stuelke at the end of the game, we were like, ‘Good luck this year.’ Little stuff like that,” Ayrault said. “It’s definitely easy to root for people like that. They are definitely cool people. Big Ten pride.”

That’s how you win with class. And this Michigan State women’s basketball team is getting a lot of experience in doing it this year.