Six Spartans Reach Double Figures as MSU Overwhelms Oakland in Season Opener

EAST LANSING, Mich. - With six players reaching double figures, the Michigan State women's basketball team opened the 2024-25 season with a dominating wire-to-wire, 107-42, win over Oakland on Tuesday night at the Breslin Center.

MSU has now won 15-consecutive home openers, as their last loss in the first home game of the season was on Nov. 19, 2009 vs. #5/6 Notre Dame.

The Spartans were led by 15 points from junior forward Grace VanSlooten in her Spartan debut. In her first game since transferring from Oregon, VanSlooten added nine rebounds and two steals. Junior guard Theryn Hallock scored 14 points, while senior guard/forward Jocelyn Tate added 13 points and four steals. Graduate guard/forward Julia Ayrault scored 11 points with seven boards, three assists and two blocks. Junior guard Abbey Kimball and redshirt-freshman guard Kennedy Blair both added 10 points.

As a team, Michigan State's defense was dominating, forcing 22 steals just shy of the school record of 24 set in both 1980 and 1996. The Spartans would go on to score 44 points off of turnovers in the game.

Oakland was led by a game-high 19 points from former Spartan Maddy Skorupski. OU was unable to find its groove from long distance, going 0-for-17 from beyond the arc.

The Spartans scored the first 10 points of the game before a Skorupski free throw stopped the drought. Michigan State jumped out to a 23-8 lead with less than three minutes left in the quarter with stellar defense and balanced scoring. MSU ended the quarter with an 8-0 run to take its first 20-point lead, 31-10. Hallock led the way with 10 points in the first 10 minutes of action. The Golden Grizzlies had 11 turnovers in the first quarter.

In the second period, Michigan State jumped out to a 40-14, leading to an Oakland timeout with 5:57 left in the half. As the Spartan offense continued to roll, the defense came up with big plays to forcing 21 turnovers in the first half. MSU ended the half on an 11-0 run to take a 58-18 lead into the locker room. At the break, Hallock, VanSlooten and Tate had all reached double figures.

The third quarter was tighter, but the Spartans were able to maintain their double-digit advantage. MSU closed out the quarter with an 8-0 run to lead 81-33 heading into the final 10 minutes. For the period, the Spartans out-scored the Grizzlies 23-15.

In the fourth quarter, the Spartans emptied their bench with all 14 active players seeing action. Freshmen Inés Sotelo, Kennedy Blair, Sinai Douglas and Juliann Woodard all scored their first collegiate points in the season opener. Michigan State took its biggest lead of the game 65 points after a Douglas trey, which was her first collegiate bucket.

The Spartans continue four-game homestand on Friday, Nov. 8 against Yale at 7 p.m.

Michigan State Women's Basketball Post-Game Notes
• Michigan State won its 11th-straight season-opener and second in a row under head coach Robyn Fralick . . . MSU's last season-opening loss was on Nov. 11, 2013 at #6/7 Notre Dame.

• The Spartans have won 15-consecutive home openers, as their last loss in the first home game of the season was on Nov. 19, 2009 vs. #5/6 Notre Dame.

• MSU has won 14 of its last 16 home games at the Breslin Center, after going 13-2 last season at home.

• Michigan State beat Oakland in its season-opener for the second-straight year after last season's 87-62 win over Oakland on Nov. 8, 2023 . . . MSU also beat OU for the 17th-straight meeting and now lead the all-time series, 21-4, with five of the last six wins coming in East Lansing . . . the Spartans' 107 points ties for the most-ever scored in the series, matching a 107-89 Victory for MSU on Feb. 16, 1978, and was the first time reaching 100 points since a 102-58 Spartan win on Dec. 5, 2018 in Rochester and just the third time in the series.

• MSU's 65-point margin of victory was the largest in the series, topping the previous high of 46 points in an 85-39 Spartan win on Nov. 15, 2022.

• Tuesday's 107 points were MSU's most points scored in a season-opener since the 2008-09 opener when the Spartans routed Niagara, 116-50 . . . the 107 points was the first time topping the century mark in a season-opener since Nov. 11, 1017 in a 100-58 rout of Robert Morris.

• All 14 active Spartan players saw the court Tuesday with 13 of the 14 scoring points . . . freshman forward Helen Holley was the lone Spartan that did not score, but she did register one block, one rebound and one steal in her 3:48 of action.

• Six Spartans scored in double figures, led by newcomer, junior forward Grace VanSlooten, who led the way with 15 points in her official Green & White debut, just missing her first double-double as a Spartan. She also added nine rebounds, in addition to tallying two steals and one assist . . . VanSlooten's nine rebounds led MSU and helped the Spartans to a dominating 45-33 rebounding advantage.

• Junior guard Theryn Hallock added 14 points, along with three rebounds, one assist and one steal . . . Hallock registered double-digit points for the 19th time in her career, including her second-straight game, fourth in her last five games and in 10 of her last 12 games dating back to last season.

• Hallock has netted 10+ points in 18 of her last 26 games played since Nov. 30, 2023, her first double-figure outing last season after scoring in single-digits the first six games of the season, and only scoring in single-digits in back-to-back games once during that span.

• Senior guard/forward Jocelyn Tate tallied 13 points Tuesday for her seventh double-figure scoring game as a Spartan, including the second time in her last five games dating back to last season, also doing so with 11 points vs. Illinois (2/29/24) . . . the 13 points was her third-most points scored as a Spartan, behind her MSU high of 17 points (Central Michigan, 12/17/23) and 14 points (vs. Michigan, 1/27/24).

• Graduate guard/forward Julia Ayrault tossed in 11 points, posting her 39th career game in double-figures . . . Ayrault registered her 14th-consectuve game with 10+ points and in 25 of her last 30 games played since the start of the 2023-24 season . . . Ayrault now has 922 career points, needing just 78 more to become the 31st Spartan to reach 1,000 career points.

• Junior guard Abbey Kimball chipped in with 10 points, posting her 12th career game in scoring double digits, and doing so for the second time in her last six games along with her 17 points vs. Rutgers (2/24/24).

• Redshirt-freshman guard Kennedy Blair had a smashing Spartan debut with 10 points Tuesday night after missing the entire 2023-24 season with an injury.

• Kimball netting two 3-pointers to tie for team honors, joined by Spartan newcomers junior guard Emma Shumate, graduate guard Nyla Hampton and freshman forward Juliann Woodard in netting two treys apiece.

• The Spartan reserves dominated their counterparts, as MSU had a 48-17 bench-points scoring advantage . . . Michigan State also had the edge in the other specialty stats categories, with a 44-6 points off turnovers advantage, 48-22 points in the paint differential, 19-10 second-change points scoring and 38-2 fast-break scoring advantage.

• MSU led from start-to-finish, reaching the largest margin of the night with the final 65-point margin with 47 seconds left . . . the Spartans' largest scoring run was 14-0 spanning the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth quarter, capped by pair of Kimball free throws at 7:19.

• Michigan State forced 33 Oakland turnovers, including swiping 22 steals, with 11 of the 14 Spartans posting at least one steal, while Hampton led the way with a game-high five steals . . .four Spartans swiped multiple steals as Hampton was followed by four from Tate, three by graduate guard Jaddan Simmons and two each by VanSlooten and Kimball.

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Team Stats

Grace VanSlooten

Theryn Hallock

Jocelyn Tate

Julia Ayrault

Players Mentioned

Julia Ayrault

Kennedy Blair

Sinai Douglas

Theryn Hallock

Nyla Hampton

Helen Holley

Abbey Kimball

Emma Shumate

Jaddan Simmons

Jocelyn Tate

Grace VanSlooten

Juliann Woodard