Photo by: Matthew Mitchell/MSU Athletic Communications
Post-Game Quotes: Minnesota
2/17/2020 10:40:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Michigan State head coach Suzy Merchant
On limiting Taiye Bello…
Well number one was we really needed to do a good job of keeping her off the offensive glass because she does score that way a lot. I'm not sure we were spectacular on that but when she caught it, if we couldn't deter her from getting it, we didn't want to completely front, we wanted to three-quarter, and if we couldn't get the tip we definitely wanted to use our post to get behind her. She really becomes a face-up guy, wirer, quick and fast. Almost becomes like a guard-like creature in there so we were talking to our kids, show your hand, move your feet, stay between her. Just wall up, show your hands, don't come down just stay between her and the basket. I thought those guys did a really good job of that because she's a tough matchup the way she plays. She can really face you up from eight feet, shoot it in your face, rip it in drive, reverse dribble. So, we were a little concerned about that, she's really good about getting people in foul trouble and we tend to do that with those young bigs. I was proud of them tonight because that didn't happen.
On Julia Ayrault's scoring outburst in the fourth quarter…
She can do that; her problem is that she has been hurt a lot, ailments, doesn't feel good, had a headache. When my kids got the flu, those kids were out for two days and played but she was out for like two weeks. She's just kind of had bum luck a little bit, so it's been hard to get her into the rotation. I went into the year watching her and thought, 'This kid's going to be our starting four man.' Then she had all these ailments and issues and some of it is too you got to toughen up a little bit at this level, you got to know what the difference is between being hurt and injured but I think she's learning that too. The kid's IQ is off the chart. I think she's going to be an amazing four man for us, and has a chance to be an all-conference player but she's just gotta kind figure out the bumps, the bruises and some of the challenges that happen in this game. This off-season will be huge for her. She needs to spend her life in the weight room, she needs to get stronger, get her agility where it needs to be. The sky is the limit for her. Like I said she's got such a great IQ for the game.
It was really fun to watch her. I think she is starting to get more confident and she can recognize kind of… I guess she has a high IQ for the game; probably the best on our team in terms of passing angles, and who is open, and what she sees, and even her timing on a block. I mean there are a lot of kids on our team that can block a shot, but nobody does it better than Julia because she knows exactly how to time it, and I think she sees that thing happenlimitiing in slow motion. I think when you have a player on your team that can play fast, but sees the game slow, that is when you have somebody pretty special and I do think that about Julia. I think her problem has just been that she has needed to get her confidence where it needed to be, from some of the injuries she had early in the season and now she is starting to fight through some of that stuff, which is great because we need her. You could see what she can do. She could do that against anybody, really. She generates some offense. I will say when we struggle, because we have lost a lot of kids, in terms of our roster. All of the upperclassmen in particular. We weren't even sure we would have Taryn (McCutcheon), I was told we weren't going to have Taryn tonight, because of her back injury, but even with Taryn, it's like you have all these upperclassmen that you want to rely on and they are not there anymore, so you are going through some of those growing pains and so to see these kids start to believe, and step up, and be confident has been kind of fun. I think we saw some really good things from Tory Ozment, I thought Mo (Moira Joiner) is always Mo, I thought Taiyier (Parks) and Kayla (Belles) did a good job in there, I thought Julia was the best of them all, no question.
On Mo Joiner…
Mo just plays so hard - I think that's the one thing about her. You can never count Mo out, that's why you always want her out on the floor. She always guards the other team's best player. I mean you shouldn't be giving that to a freshman. That should be given to a senior or an upperclassman truthfully. But Mo is just the one you trust; she's really earned that right. I think she just plays so hard. She never gives up on a play. If the ball is going out of bounds and she thinks there's a chance that we can get it, she'll be diving in there to get a tip on it. There's nothing about her that is slow or going through the motions. She competes every practice and she competes hard in every game.
On limiting Taiye Bello…
Well number one was we really needed to do a good job of keeping her off the offensive glass because she does score that way a lot. I'm not sure we were spectacular on that but when she caught it, if we couldn't deter her from getting it, we didn't want to completely front, we wanted to three-quarter, and if we couldn't get the tip we definitely wanted to use our post to get behind her. She really becomes a face-up guy, wirer, quick and fast. Almost becomes like a guard-like creature in there so we were talking to our kids, show your hand, move your feet, stay between her. Just wall up, show your hands, don't come down just stay between her and the basket. I thought those guys did a really good job of that because she's a tough matchup the way she plays. She can really face you up from eight feet, shoot it in your face, rip it in drive, reverse dribble. So, we were a little concerned about that, she's really good about getting people in foul trouble and we tend to do that with those young bigs. I was proud of them tonight because that didn't happen.
On Julia Ayrault's scoring outburst in the fourth quarter…
She can do that; her problem is that she has been hurt a lot, ailments, doesn't feel good, had a headache. When my kids got the flu, those kids were out for two days and played but she was out for like two weeks. She's just kind of had bum luck a little bit, so it's been hard to get her into the rotation. I went into the year watching her and thought, 'This kid's going to be our starting four man.' Then she had all these ailments and issues and some of it is too you got to toughen up a little bit at this level, you got to know what the difference is between being hurt and injured but I think she's learning that too. The kid's IQ is off the chart. I think she's going to be an amazing four man for us, and has a chance to be an all-conference player but she's just gotta kind figure out the bumps, the bruises and some of the challenges that happen in this game. This off-season will be huge for her. She needs to spend her life in the weight room, she needs to get stronger, get her agility where it needs to be. The sky is the limit for her. Like I said she's got such a great IQ for the game.
It was really fun to watch her. I think she is starting to get more confident and she can recognize kind of… I guess she has a high IQ for the game; probably the best on our team in terms of passing angles, and who is open, and what she sees, and even her timing on a block. I mean there are a lot of kids on our team that can block a shot, but nobody does it better than Julia because she knows exactly how to time it, and I think she sees that thing happenlimitiing in slow motion. I think when you have a player on your team that can play fast, but sees the game slow, that is when you have somebody pretty special and I do think that about Julia. I think her problem has just been that she has needed to get her confidence where it needed to be, from some of the injuries she had early in the season and now she is starting to fight through some of that stuff, which is great because we need her. You could see what she can do. She could do that against anybody, really. She generates some offense. I will say when we struggle, because we have lost a lot of kids, in terms of our roster. All of the upperclassmen in particular. We weren't even sure we would have Taryn (McCutcheon), I was told we weren't going to have Taryn tonight, because of her back injury, but even with Taryn, it's like you have all these upperclassmen that you want to rely on and they are not there anymore, so you are going through some of those growing pains and so to see these kids start to believe, and step up, and be confident has been kind of fun. I think we saw some really good things from Tory Ozment, I thought Mo (Moira Joiner) is always Mo, I thought Taiyier (Parks) and Kayla (Belles) did a good job in there, I thought Julia was the best of them all, no question.
On Mo Joiner…
Mo just plays so hard - I think that's the one thing about her. You can never count Mo out, that's why you always want her out on the floor. She always guards the other team's best player. I mean you shouldn't be giving that to a freshman. That should be given to a senior or an upperclassman truthfully. But Mo is just the one you trust; she's really earned that right. I think she just plays so hard. She never gives up on a play. If the ball is going out of bounds and she thinks there's a chance that we can get it, she'll be diving in there to get a tip on it. There's nothing about her that is slow or going through the motions. She competes every practice and she competes hard in every game.
Players Mentioned
Guard
/ Women's Basketball
Guard
/ Women's Basketball
Guard/Forward
/ Women's BasketballRobyn Fralick Postgame Press Conference | Mercyhurst
Tuesday, November 04
Robyn Fralick Postgame Press Conference | Michigan Tech
Wednesday, October 22
Robyn Fralick | Women's Basketball Press Conference | Oct. 21 2025
Tuesday, October 21
Robyn Fralick | Women's Basketball Selection Show Press Conference | March 16, 2025
Sunday, March 16