Rutgers Women's Basketball played its best first half of the season, going into the half tied with No. 22 Michigan State. It looked like the Scarlet Knights (8-10, 0-7) were going to have a chance to pull off an upset in what would have been Rutgers' first win against a ranked team since March 5th, 2021.
Instead, the Spartans (14-3, 4-2) used a late third-quarter run to pull ahead and never looked back in the fourth, moving into the top seven in the Big Ten standings with a 71-59 win.
A game after setting a new career high, star guard Kiyomi McMiller struggled to get it going from the floor. She fouled out in 30 minutes, scoring 13 points on 5-for-17 shooting with seven turnovers. The Spartans' defense put two defenders on McMiller in the backcourt, then put plenty of attention on her in the frontcourt to throw McMiller off of her usual rhythm.
Destiny Adams finished as the lone other Scarlet Knight in double-figures, though she also fouled out for the second straight game in 27 minutes. She did notch her ninth double-double of the season - and her fourth straight - with a team-high 15 points and 10 rebounds.
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The Scarlet Knights played one of their most consistent halves in the opening 20 minutes, going into the locker room tied with the Spartans at 33 apiece. They were able to limit the open looks from the perimeter, holding Michigan State to a 6-for-18 mark from the three-point line in the first half.
Rutgers used some timely shooting and played one of its better second quarters of the season - the quarter that head coach Coquese Washington has focused on fixing the most - and built a six-point lead at one point before the Spartans went on another run to tie the game up.
The game slowed down in the third quarter - largely due to both teams getting in foul trouble - but Rutgers was still able to keep pace to start thanks to solid defense against the Spartans' half-court offense. The offense struggled to retain possession, turning the ball over eight times in the quarter and 22 times overall.
Late in the game, Michigan State was able to flip the momentum as Rutgers was unable to convert off turnovers. The Spartans racked up 26 points off turnovers, compared to only 4 points off 13 turnovers forced for the Scarlet Knights.
Michigan State ended the third quarter on an 11-3 run and never looked back, as Rutgers only traded buckets in the fourth quarter and could not put together a big run to get back within two possessions.
The Spartans flexed their depth muscle, outscoring the Scarlet Knights in bench points 34-8, with two of their three double-digit scorers - Emma Shumate and Grace VanSlooten - coming off the bench. Julia Ayrault - the lone starter in double-figures - tied Shumate for the team lead with 12 points, though starters Jaddan Simmons and Theryn Hallock both scored 9 points.
On a night where Michigan State struggled to shoot, only converting at a 38% clip from the floor and 6-for-28 from beyond the arc, the Spartans' relentless attack eventually broke through. The extra chances helped as well, as Michigan State turned 19 offensive rebounds into 19 second-chance points.
Despite the loss, there were some other positive takeaways against the fourth ranked opponent in six games.
The Scarlet Knights were able to get more production from other pieces outside of Adams and McMiller, especially key on a night where the two stars combined to shoot 9-for-29 from the floor. Awa Sidibe continued to get more comfortable in her seventh game of the season since coming back from a knee injury, scoring 9 points while grabbing three rebounds and dishing two assists. She opened up the scoring for the Scarlet Knights with a backdoor cut leading to an open layup.
Chyna Cornwell had one of her better games of the season, feasting against Michigan State's perimeter-heavy rotation with 8 points and a season-high 15 rebounds, along with a career-high four blocks. Eight of her rebounds were on the offensive end, as she continues to be one of the most reliable offensive rebounders in the Big Ten.
"I think when we're playing teams where her size and height can be impactful, when she gets in there and gives us second-chance opportunities and gets on the boards, it's really important and really impactful for us." Washington said after the game.
Adams, despite struggling to shoot from the floor, had another impressive game defensively, finishing with two blocks and three steals. She leads the team in both categories and has been playing more on the perimeter in the last few games, using her timing and instincts to force the ball free from opposing ballhandlers and jumping the passing lanes to set up transition opportunities.
With the schedule's hardest portion almost over, Rutgers has continued to progress as a team over the last two games. After the next two games against Michigan - a ranked team last week before falling out of the Top 25 and receiving votes this week - and No. 1 UCLA, the Scarlet Knights do not face a currently-ranked team for the rest of the season.
That could change, as both Indiana and Iowa received votes, but it shows the brunt of the schedule is nearly complete, and Rutgers has an opportunity to turn the past two close losses into wins. Those wins would be extra important, as Rutgers continues to fight for the bottom spots in the Big Ten Tournament, where they are currently tied with Northwestern, Penn State, and Purdue as winless teams in the Big Ten. Wisconsin sits in 14th place with one win, coming against the Scarlet Knights back in December. It appears the teams with the most wins against the bottom five will claim those final two tournament spots.
"I think the overarching theme is not being able to put together a full 40 minutes of execution," Washington said on the skid. "In all three phases - offensively, defensively, or rebounding - every game it seems like we have a period of the game where we have a little drought, where either we're not getting the rebounding, or we're not getting the stops we need, or we're not scoring, or we're turning the ball over, so it's not really one thing. It's just our inability right now to really execute for 40 minutes. We just gotta keep plugging away and find a way to make that happen."
RHOOPS PLAY OF THE GAME
Kiyomi McMiller extends Rutgers' lead with the deep stepback three.
UP NEXT?
The Scarlet Knights face another team from the Great Lake State, traveling to Ann Arbor to play Michigan on Sunday. The game will tip off at noon EST and will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network.
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