Merchant focused on keeping team fresh

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With the postseason here, MSU head coach Suzy Merchant is scaling back practices to keep her team fresh for a run in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.

At this point in the season, with the rotation set and everybody firmly in their roles, practice is about quality, not quantity, Merchant said.

“I want to keep our kids fresh,” Merchant said. “I want them mentally and physically fresh.”

That was evident in how Merchant prepared her team for Minnesota.

The team got back from Purdue at about midnight following Thursday’s game. Merchant said instead of turning around and “hammering them” with a full practice at 3 p.m. Friday, the coaching staff significantly toned it down.

“All we did, we were in there for 45 minutes and we walked through Minnesota’s sets so at least when we went Saturday — when we did it live — we’d been through it twice,” Merchant said. “We literally talked through them and shot free throws for 15 minutes. That’s all we did.”

Merchant said about 40 minutes into Sunday’s 60-minute shootaround before the Minnesota game, she felt the team had done everything it could.

“Even an hour for shootaround is too long,” Merchant said.

“At the beginning of the year it made a lot of sense because we needed to get through stuff, but now it’s kind of like, ‘We know how we’re going to guard this, we’ve been through it for two days.’”

That philosophy toward practice is going to take on added importance as sophomore guard Taylor Alton now will miss four to six weeks after undergoing surgery on her left shoulder Feb. 23.

Alton, who wore a sling Sunday, has seen limited playing time this season. Although she was not in the regular rotation, her presence will be missed in practice.

“It’s one less guard, so (it’s going to mean) a little more reps for other kids, which can be good, can be bad,” Merchant said.

Gaining confidence?

Freshman guard Jasmine Thomas has had two strong games in a row after struggling through much of February.

Thomas came on strong in the first half of MSU’s 79-64 win at Purdue on Thursday, scoring eight points with four rebounds and three assists. Sunday against Minnesota, she scored 12 points on 5-of-5 shooting.

“One of the things before Purdue I was talking to her about is that I thought she was getting kind of down on putting so much weight on whether she scored or didn’t score,” Merchant said. “I tried to explain to her that she’s not in the starting lineup because she can score. She’s in the starting lineup because of her speed, her defense, her quickness.”

Earlier this season, Merchant and Thomas agreed that Thomas hung her head a little too much after making a mistake. That still seems like a battle at times, but Merchant is showing confidence in the freshman guard by sticking with Thomas.

“The other thing I tried to explain to her is that even if she misses a shot, who cares,” Merchant said.

“We’ve got people that will go and get it.”

Thomas has started the last 10 contests and averaged six points and 3.1 rebounds in almost 20 minutes per game this season.

Back in it

Despite being one of the hottest teams in the country, the Spartans (21-8 overall, 12-6 Big Ten), now winners of 10-of-11 games, hadn’t climbed back into the rankings until this past week.

MSU re-entered the Associated Press Top-25 Poll released Monday at No. 25. Last week, the Spartans went back into the ESPN/USA Today Poll, which is released each Tuesday, at No. 25. It’s the first time the Spartans have been ranked since the week of Jan. 11.

MSU has played four teams currently in the poll this season, going 3-2 against them.

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