With the MSU women’s basketball team’s (15-9 overall, 7-4 Big Ten) season headed in a downward spiral following the program’s first four-game losing streak in four years, head coach Suzy Merchant called out her upperclassmen for not being leaders.

In the three games since, the Spartans are undefeated with senior guards Porsché Poole and Taylor Alton and senior forward Lykendra Johnson leading the way.

Looking back on the losing skid, Merchant said she is proud of the way her seniors have responded.

“As your seniors goes, so go your season,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what sport you’re in. When your seniors are playing at a high level, your team usually succeeds. And I think there were times when they weren’t.”

A major part of the turnaround has been the play of Poole, who has averaged 25 points, six rebounds and six assists the last three games and was named Big Ten Player of the Week two weeks ago.

Poole said she and her fellow seniors have felt a sense of urgency to end their careers the right way.

“Right now, basically this is our season,” she said. “This is our last run at it. After this year we’ll never put on (the) jerseys again and we’re … the seniors, we have to step up.“

In MSU’s 72-58 win over Northwestern on Thursday, Alton scored 11 points and grabbed seven rebounds, but it was energy plays — such as diving on the floor for a loose ball in a critical possession — that Alton said she was most concerned with contributing.

With the season entering the stretch run, Alton said she knows her younger teammates will be looking to her for help.

“That’s kind of been the theme to have really solid, strong senior leaders,” she said.

“(It’s) going to be huge down the stretch because we’ve been here, we have the most experience and we have that sense of urgency that with (a few) games left, this is kind of the end. So it’s just going to come down to every day, every game, bringing everything we have, not having any regrets and leaving everything out there.”

It was another slow start for the MSU women’s basketball team (14-9 overall, 6-4 Big Ten), but the Spartans used a 12-2 run to end the half to take a 33-28 lead over Northwestern (13-10, 3-7) into the locker room.

MSU led for only 20 seconds in the game’s first 17 minutes before the run.

Senior guard Porsché Poole led the Spartans with 10 points and four assists at the half, and freshman forward Becca Mills provided a spark off the bench with six points and three rebounds.

MSU struggled to contain Wildcats center Dannielle Diamant and guard Tailor Jones early in the game.

Diamant finished the half with seven points and seven rebounds, and Jones added six points and four rebounds.

Northwestern outrebounded MSU 22-17 in the first half.

The MSU women’s basketball team (14-9, 6-4) will head into tonight’s game with Northwestern (13-10 overall, 3-7 Big Ten) (6:00 p.m., Big Ten Network) with confidence that extends beyond their current two-game win streak.

MSU owns the matchup of late, beating Northwestern in each of the past 15 meetings and 25 of the past 27 games.

The Spartans success isn’t limited to Northwestern, as MSU has won 10 conference games in each of the past nine seasons, tied with Ohio State for the longest streak in the Big Ten.

Cleaning the glass

MSU won a Big Ten Championship last season by leading the conference in rebounding margin and this year’s squad is following in its predecessor’s footsteps.

MSU is first in the conference in rebounding margin again this season, and have outrebounded their opponents in each of the past six games.

Senior forward Lykendra Johnson is one of the best rebounders in program history and has helped the Spartans stay among the conference’s top rebounding squads.

Johnson is currently second in the Big Ten in rebounding, averaging 8.9 rebounds per game despite playing only 27.2 minutes per game.
*
Packing the house*

Breslin Center is known as one of the loudest arena’s in the country and the Spartans have been making the most of their home-court advantage.

MSU has won 28 of its past 32 home games and a big reason has been the impressive support from Spartan fans.

MSU currently ranks second in the Big Ten and ninth in the country in attendance, with an average of 7,054 fans per game.

The Jan. 15 game against Ohio State featured the third-largest crowd in program history with 14,181 people in the stands.

The MSU women’s basketball team (14-9 overall, 6-4 Big Ten) snapped a four-game losing streak less than two weeks ago and is now riding a two-game winning streak into tonight’s game with Northwestern (13-10, 3-7) (6:00 p.m., Big Ten Network).

There have been a number of differences between MSU’s play during the two streaks, most noticeably a new starting lineup that included senior guard Porsché Poole and sophomore guard Klarissa Bell.

But the statistics show several changing trends that have been critical to MSU’s recent success.

Fast Starts

During the losing streak: MSU’s never led in three of the four games and only led Ohio State 2-0 and 4-3 in the game’s opening minutes.

During the winning streak: MSU started the Michigan game on an 11-0 run and opened the Penn State game with a 10-5 lead. MSU led both games at halftime.

Scoring

During the losing streak: MSU averaged 58 points per game

During the winning streak: MSU averaged 74 points per game

Shooting

During the losing streak: MSU shot 36.2 percent from the floor

During the winning streak: MSU shot 48.7 percent from the floor

3-point shooting

During the losing streak: MSU shot 22.3 percent from beyond the arc

During the winning streak: MSU shot 40.6 percent from beyond the arc

Turnovers

During the losing streak: MSU averaged 16.7 turnovers per game

During the winning streak: MSU averaged 11 turnovers per game

Senior forward Lykendra Johnson

During the losing streak: Johnson averaged 10.2 points and 6.2 rebounds per game

During the winning streak: Johnson averaged 16 points and 11.5 rebounds per game

Sophomore guard Klarissa Bell

During the losing streak: Bell averaged one point and 2.7 rebounds in nine minutes per game

During the winning streak: Bell averaged 10 points and five rebounds in 33 minutes per game

Senior guard Porsché Poole

During the losing streak: Poole averaged 13 points, two assists and 0.7 rebounds per game

During the winning streak: Poole averaged 27.5 points, 5.5 assists and 7.5 rebounds per game

Kiana Johnson is known for her swagger.

The freshman guard is challenging the MSU freshman record for assists and has started in her first season at the position head coach Suzy Merchant said is the most difficult to play.

It’s a challenge Johnson has repeatedly said she craved, but in Sunday’s game against U-M (17-7 overall, 6-5 Big Ten) Merchant benched her for the final 12 minutes of the game.

Merchant said she changed Tuesday’s practice to be less physically demanding and asked her freshman guard if she was starting to wear down.

“I asked her, ‘Are you tired?’” Merchant said. “That kid was playing 80-100 games (last year, with) a coaching staff that was in her, probably in her a lot more than I’ve been in her.

“They were very aggressive in a good way. They demanded and pushed those kids. She was up at five in the morning doing conditioning, then (would) turn around and come to they gym for three hour practices later in the afternoon. (So) I don’t worry about that with her, I really don’t.”

Johnson said one of the things that drew her to MSU was the opportunity to play right away with Brittney Thomas graduating from last year’s team.

Now as the season enters the home stretch, Johnson said she’s determined to show she’s up to the task.

“Coming here, I knew what I was up against, I wanted the challenge, and I was ready for it,” she said. “I don’t believe there’s a freshman wall that I’m ever going to hit because in my mind, I was never a freshman, so there was no wall for me to hit.”

With senior guard Porsché Poole and senior forwards Lykendra Johnson and Taylor Alton closing in on their final college games, Johnson said making sure her teammates leave MSU with a bang is her top motivation.

“Coming into the season, that’s the only people I wanted to play for — the seniors,” she said. “It’s their last time playing and the last time playing with me, so I want to make sure I leave an impression with them, so they don’t want to play with a guard that’s not me. That’s just my goal. I love the seniors to death, and I want to play for them.”

Throughout the season, the MSU women’s basketball team (14-9 overall, 6-4 Big Ten) has dealt with one nagging issue that’s plagued them all year — strong starts.

If they open the game with energy, the Spartans usually win. But early lethargy has been something players, including sophomore guard Klarissa Bell, are still trying to understand.

“We’re not really sure why it’s been an issue,” Bell said. “We’re just trying to figure it out, and changing the starting lineup helped that.”

“But it is huge. If you’re down by eight to 14 points, that’s not good going into the second half because it means you have to constantly battle through the second half to get a run big enough to catch up to that score.”

Bell said she believes senior guard Porsché Poole’s recent scoring surge has helped MSU gain a lead and early confidence.

Senior forward Lykendra Johnson agreed with Bell’s assessment, but said the sophomore guard may be selling her own impact short.

“(Bell) does give us an extra spark in the lineup,” she said. “She’s going to hustle, she’s going to do the small stuff to win the game and (Poole’s been) starting off with a hot shot, so that does give us a plus too. It gives everyone else confidence and we feed off that as a team.”

Head coach Suzy Merchant said Bell’s energy and athleticism Bell have made a major difference for MSU’s starting lineup the past two games.

However Merchant traces MSU’s season-long inconsistency to the Spartans youth, particularly freshman guard Kiana Johnson.

“I think (it’s) because we’re young, I really do,” she said. “I think sometimes when (Kiana Johnson’s) kind of off early, we’re off early. As we get off to a good start, usually things go our way and with the (new lineup), now I feel we have four kids that can score the basketball and will look to score. You don’t have a group of defender only’s or one or two kids out there that are defensively gifted, and we have to piecemeal them together offensively.”

As a point guard, Kiana Johnson said she knows the team’s offense starts with her, and when one player gets it going, it makes the entire team better.

“When that happens we’re all hype, the bench is hype, the coaches are hype and we’re just ready to play,” she said. “For the opponent, that’s the worst thing that can happen. If we have a lot of energy and we come out ready, then it’s a nightmare for them.”

It’s been an uphill battle to find playing time for Courtney Schiffauer the past two weeks after a momentary lapse in judgement against Illinois (8-16 overall, 2-9 Big Ten) altered the junior forward’s role on the MSU women’s basketball team (14-9, 6-4).

In an overtime loss to Illinois on Jan. 26, Schiffauer opened the game with a missed layup and finished the game by receiving a costly technical foul.

Both plays drew the ire of head coach Suzy Merchant later that night.

“(Schiffauer) gets a wide open layup, and we miss a wide open layup. That’s unacceptable and … I feel like our upperclassmen really aren’t consistent in the scoring department and taking on that bulk of being a player night in and night out, and it’s causing us obviously some problems.”

“When (Schiffauer) got the technical it was a killer. Just unnecessary, unprovoked and … I felt like the air came out of the bag a little bit.”

Since the incidents, the junior forward has been removed from the starting lineup and seen her minutes dwindle.

In the 21 games before the Illinois game, she started 12 times and averaged 5.1 points in 19.6 minutes per game.

In the past two games combined, Schiffauer has totaled one point and attempted two shots in 19 minutes.

After practice on Tuesday, Merchant said she spoke with her team about how the improved play of the new starting five has limited the minutes she’s giving the bench.

“I’m not going to sub just to sub,” she said. “If (senior guard Porsché Poole is) playing the way she’s playing and (sophomore guard Klarissa Bell is) playing the way she was playing, why would I take them off the floor? … I’ve never been a coach just to sub to get other people minutes. I’m really just going to ride the players that are playing well at the time.”

Coming into the season as defending Big Ten Champions, many members of the MSU women’s basketball team (14-9 overall, 6-4 Big Ten) said they were determined to defend their title.

But after losing four straight games in the middle of the conference season, with two of the losses coming to below .500 teams in Minnesota (12-13, 4-7) and Illinois (8-16, 2-9), repeating as Big Ten Champs seemed unlikely.

Following the loss to Illinois, head coach Suzy Merchant and senior guard Porsché Poole came up with a new starting lineup, and the team has responded with back-to-back wins against Penn State (18-5, 8-3) and Michigan (17-7, 6-5), giving Spartan fans reason to hope.

Even though Merchant said she wishes her team could play some of those losses over again, MSU is still in the heat of the conference title race.

“I like our team and I think we’re battling hard,” she said. “Really with Illinois, we lost in overtime, but we could have won three straight.”

MSU currently sits two losses behind Big Ten leaders Purdue (19-5, 9-2) and Nebraska (19-3, 8-2) and will host both teams in the season’s final week.

With only six games remaining before the Big Ten tournament it will be tough for MSU to make up the distance, but with home games against the teams in front of them in the standings looming up ahead, the opportunity is there for the Spartans to make a run.

Following the win over Michigan, Merchant said she thinks her team is headed in the right direction.

“I feel good about where we’re at,” she said. “We’ve got a little pep in our step and that change in the starting lineup has given us a little bit of that added offensive strength and maybe some confidence we didn’t have when we were struggling a little bit. … It’s a tough league, but we feel good about getting out of here with a win.”

It had been a rough couple of weeks for Jasmine Thomas.

After losing her starting spot to senior guard Porsché Poole two games ago, the junior guard had a tough time cracking head coach Suzy Merchant’s rotation.

Before Sunday’s game against Michigan (17-7 overall, 6-5 Big Ten) Thomas played just two minutes against Penn State on Jan. 29 (18-5, 8-3) and didn’t register a single stat.

With Poole and freshman guard Kiana Johnson playing well, Merchant said after the Penn State game that it can be tough to find minutes for everyone.

“It’s tough, you only have so many spots to go around, and I wasn’t taking Kiana or (Poole) off the floor,” she said. “I put her in for a little bit there, but she doesn’t have a lot of confidence at the offensive end right now, and I think our team, people feed off that.”

“It’s kind of like smelling fear. If someone’s afraid out there, people are going to know it, and I feel like she’s been playing on her heels and has a little bit of an edge to her and doesn’t have her confidence, and we couldn’t afford to put any body out there that wasn’t going to at least be aggressive and look at the basket and attack.”

But with 11:58 remaining against U-M and the score tied at 44, Merchant subbed Thomas into the game and let her run the point in the game’s final twelve minutes.

Thomas knifed through the defense for a layup to bring MSU (14-9. 6-4) within one point with just more than four minutes remaining, but it was her late game defense against Michigan guard Courtney Boylan that made the biggest difference for the Spartans down the stretch.

“I was happy for (Thomas) to be able to give us some big defensive minutes down the stretch,” Merchant said. “It felt like (Boylan) was in too much of a groove and we needed a little more athletecism, a little more quickness on her. (Thomas is) bigger than (Johnson and) her length and quickness … are a little different, so we thought she could get to her turnaround jumper a little bit better.”

As senior guard Porsché Poole’s last minute heroics captured headlines, Lykendra Johnson’s play flew under the radar.

After being held scoreless in the first half, the senior forward exploded for 16 second-half points, including MSU’s first nine points of the half and a layup that tied the game with 53 seconds to go on Sunday.

Before the MSU women’s basketball team’s (14-9 overall, 6-4 Big Ten) beat Michigan 65-63, head coach Suzy Merchant spoke to Johnson at halftime and urged her to pick up her intensity.

“I didn’t know what was wrong,” Merchant said. “I said, ‘We need you to get down there (in the post).’ I felt like she looked extremely tired out there. She couldn’t get to the ball. I thought she was kind of in a little bit different place, almost a place where she was early in the season when she was trying to get her conditioning back, and I thought she had gotten through that.”

Winning the Big Ten’s Defensive Player of the Year award last season, Johnson has spent much of the season working to regain the fitness level that helped her become elite before giving birth to a daughter in August.

Merchant said she thought Johnson’s second half aggressiveness was key for MSU in the come-from-behind victory, and Johnson said it was the challenge from her coach at halftime that helped her elevate her game.

“I told myself — you know athletes talk to themselves when they’re on the court — I do have to step up,” she said. “I am a senior, and I have to lead this team, and everybody else will follow me if I step my game up.”

Poole and Johnson have talked together regularly the past two weeks about leaving their mark in their final season at MSU, and Poole said her fellow senior responded by taking her game to another level.

“(Johnson) was huge, man,” she said. “Coach let her know we need you in the second half. We need you to step up, we need a post presence down low and her being a senior and her being the player she is, (she did it). I’m really proud of her.”

Sunday’s win is the eleventh consecutive victory for MSU against rival Michigan and unless the Spartans meet the Wolverines in the Big Ten Tournament, Johnson will finish her career undefeated against U-M.

Throughout the week Johnson attempted to downplay the potential accomplishment, saying she didn’t hate Michigan, and it was just another game for the Spartans, but as she stood outside Crisler Arena after the game grinning from ear to ear, it was clear how much the victory meant to her.

“(After) reading in the media about (Michigan) and (them) going in with confidence and all of that stuff, it gets you fired up, especially the senior class,” she said.

“We take that to heart and we came to battle. … It’s my last go-around, it’s my last Michigan game (and) I just put a lot of pressure on myself to perform, and if I keep doing that, with my teammates behind me, anything is possible.”