MSU women's basketball still finding itself on the court
Busy travel schedule has made it difficult for Spartans to work on themselves in season's early stages.
EAST LANSING - The air miles have been piling up for coach Suzy Merchant and the Michigan State women’s basketball team the last few weeks.
The extensive travel schedule for the Spartans the last couple of weeks has included a road swing that took them to Oregon and then California before heading to the opposite coast for a road contest against Syracuse in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
And MSU returns to the East Coast for a two-game swing that begins with a road contest at Quinnipiac on Tuesday and also features a trip to Rhode Island.
The busy schedule of games and travel has made it challenging for the 7-2 Spartans to find themselves during the first month of the season.
“It’s just been a lot and you throw that Europe trip on too,” Merchant said. “I think these kids are struggling a little bit. We just need to practice. When you play this many games, it’s hard for you to work on certain things that we need to work on. They keep showing in games and we’re better than what we’re showing. We just don’t have time to really get enough practices with a really, really young team and a freshman point guard that needs to kind of rep some things out.”
Tori Jankoska, who was named to the Naismith Award watch list last week and is averaging 23.4 points, is one of just two starters back for a Spartan team that has many new players on the court trying to figure out their roles. MSU has used five different starting lineup combinations with Jankoska, freshman point guard Taryn McCutcheon (East Lansing) and Notre Dame grad transfer Taya Reimer being the three constants.
Senior Branndais Agee, junior Lexi Gussert, sophomores Jenna Allen and Hana Vesela, redshirt freshman Victoria Gaines and freshman Nia Hollie have started games for the Spartans this season.
Jankoska said MSU is working through fatigue with the many games in a short span along with the different combinations on the court to try to put a complete game together where it is clicking on offense and defense.
Allen believes things will come together for the Spartans before Big Ten play kicks off on New Year’s Day against Illinois.
“We’re so young that eventually we’re going to come out of it,” Allen said. “We’re going to get better. Being on the road so much, I feel like we haven’t had time to practice and really work on the things we need to work on. Especially for the freshmen, I think that practice time will really help them.
“I know that after we go to the East Coast and come back, we have a big period of 10 days where we can actually practice and work on the things we need to work on. After that we’re going to be really strong and tie everything together that we need to.”
Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @brian_calloway.