Michigan State University Athletics
Post-Game Quotes: UCLA
2/11/2026 11:48:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Michigan State Head Coach Robyn Fralick
Opening statement...
Tough one for us tonight. A lot of credit to UCLA. They're really good. We've got a lot of really good teams in our league, and they're a team that legitimately can win a national championship. The message I shared with the team was just that we were late to the fight. It's a 4-quarter game. I thought our 2nd half, we played tougher and better. It's a 40-minute game. We've got to be sharper, more connected, executing at a higher level over the whole 40 minutes. But credit to UCLA, they're big, they're tough, and they're good. They do a lot of things really well. I was happy to see our second half response, and we've got to be able to build on that.
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On mindset coming into game against a top-ranked team...
It's a good reminder that playing this level of teams, you bring your A game. There's no margin for error. There's no margin for mistakes, and the sharpness really challenges that. I think it's all of the above. They're this unique combination of incredibly experienced, big, and skilled inside out. Everything they do makes sense. They've had a lot of kids who've played a lot of meaningful basketball. You can see they're very connected on both sides of the ball. Obviously, their size, for us, we knew going in would be a challenge, and it was. They're big at really every position.
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On anything that caused UCLA advantage on rebounds...
 I'll see it more when I watch film. Part of it is when the ball starts at the rim. They had a lot of plays where it was lobs to the rim. You're just hoping off of that if there's a miss. I'll see off the film, but there are a number of things. One's physicality. Two, we had a number of balls I thought in the first half where we'd tip it and then not grab it. In this game, you have to get those basketballs. You have to find a way to make that our possession. We were late to the fight, and you can't be late to the fight against the heavyweight.
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On changes that need to be made to start off games better...
 That's on me. That's on us to figure out. We do have to start better. The better teams you play, you don't get to figure your way out into a game. We absolutely have to get off to better starts. As a staff and as a team, we need to figure that out and make that change quickly.
On how the team is going to regroup before facing Michigan on Sunday…Â
That's the only choice. I mean the timing from games like this, you lose or you learn. There's just things to learn, and the reality is in our league there's no time to blink, there's no time to worry, there's no time to feel sorry for yourself because there's another really good team coming. We gotta learn quick, but the biggest thing is playing 40 minutes. Playing 40 minutes connected, people on the same page, together basketball. We can do that. We have done that this year, against some of the best teams it's required.Â
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On the difficulty of preparing defensively for other teams' offense and bigs…Â
They're a really hard matchup in every way. At every spot they have really good players. The size is obvious - that's just challenging for us on a normal night. I think it's an extra challenge- I mean they are really big. They play through their posts and they dominated us tonight on the points in the paint. We knew that was going to be tough, I was hoping we'd do it a little bit better, but moving forward we've got to find ways to minimize points in the paint.
UCLA Head Coach Cori Close
Opening Statement…
Yeah, thank you guys for being here, and just a lot of respect for Michigan State. Robyn (Fralick), I think, is doing a heck of a job building a program, and I don't think the way her team played tonight is reflective of how well they've been playing. And so, just want to give a shoutout to them in terms of how hard they compete and how much they kept at us, and preserving, they made us better in that way. So, credit to how they kept fighting.
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On locking down Grace VanSlooten…
Yeah, the shots she hit, four of them were perimeter jump shots. I've been watching Grace for a long time, and she's a heck of a player. She's going to be playing at the next level, I think. But the reality is she doesn't have to go against people like Lauren Betts very much. And so, especially in the first half, we switched all the ball screens except with Lauren (Betts) and Grace (VanSlooten) so that we could keep that matchup best we could. And I think one of the reasons we were able to do that is we were really trying to take away their right-hand drives. They have some really dominant downhill drivers when they can get to that right hand, and what that does is it forces rotation if we don't take that away one on one, and now Grace (VanSlooten) is free on the offensive glass and that's where she really cleans up a lot of the time. Because we took away those right-hand drives, we were able to stay home on the matchup with Lauren (Betts) versus Grace (VanSlooten), and that's an advantage we have and that's why we were able to do that.
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On the rebounding advantage UCLA held…
Well, I mean, its effort, and I thought they did a great job in the second half. I thought they beat us to all the loose balls and all the rebounding situations in the second half. But in the first half, again, when you don't allow teams to find advantages and force rotations, you're going to have the advantage on the box outs as well. And so, that's not just Grace (VanSlooten) that's everybody across the board. That is what you saw. We really respected them. We thought this was going to be a possession game. We did not do a good job of taking care of the ball, but we thought if we could out-rebound them and take care of the ball, even if we just get even possessions. But if we got more possessions, I thought we probably had more weapons to be able to win. I thought they were going to press us even more. But I think the few first two times they pressed us, we got really easy shots on the other end, and so they backed off a little bit. But they're a really good rebounding team, but it goes back to forcing rotation. So, when you flip that around, when you have someone like Lauren (Betts) who forces rotation on almost every catch and forces you to do those kinds of advantage plays on the other side. Well, that's what opened up some of our guard rebounding. And some of fore players attacking from that because conversely, we were forcing them to get into rotation almost every time. And it's really hard, once you're in a rotation, to get out and make contact on all those box outs.
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Opening statement...
Tough one for us tonight. A lot of credit to UCLA. They're really good. We've got a lot of really good teams in our league, and they're a team that legitimately can win a national championship. The message I shared with the team was just that we were late to the fight. It's a 4-quarter game. I thought our 2nd half, we played tougher and better. It's a 40-minute game. We've got to be sharper, more connected, executing at a higher level over the whole 40 minutes. But credit to UCLA, they're big, they're tough, and they're good. They do a lot of things really well. I was happy to see our second half response, and we've got to be able to build on that.
Â
On mindset coming into game against a top-ranked team...
It's a good reminder that playing this level of teams, you bring your A game. There's no margin for error. There's no margin for mistakes, and the sharpness really challenges that. I think it's all of the above. They're this unique combination of incredibly experienced, big, and skilled inside out. Everything they do makes sense. They've had a lot of kids who've played a lot of meaningful basketball. You can see they're very connected on both sides of the ball. Obviously, their size, for us, we knew going in would be a challenge, and it was. They're big at really every position.
Â
On anything that caused UCLA advantage on rebounds...
 I'll see it more when I watch film. Part of it is when the ball starts at the rim. They had a lot of plays where it was lobs to the rim. You're just hoping off of that if there's a miss. I'll see off the film, but there are a number of things. One's physicality. Two, we had a number of balls I thought in the first half where we'd tip it and then not grab it. In this game, you have to get those basketballs. You have to find a way to make that our possession. We were late to the fight, and you can't be late to the fight against the heavyweight.
Â
On changes that need to be made to start off games better...
 That's on me. That's on us to figure out. We do have to start better. The better teams you play, you don't get to figure your way out into a game. We absolutely have to get off to better starts. As a staff and as a team, we need to figure that out and make that change quickly.
On how the team is going to regroup before facing Michigan on Sunday…Â
That's the only choice. I mean the timing from games like this, you lose or you learn. There's just things to learn, and the reality is in our league there's no time to blink, there's no time to worry, there's no time to feel sorry for yourself because there's another really good team coming. We gotta learn quick, but the biggest thing is playing 40 minutes. Playing 40 minutes connected, people on the same page, together basketball. We can do that. We have done that this year, against some of the best teams it's required.Â
Â
On the difficulty of preparing defensively for other teams' offense and bigs…Â
They're a really hard matchup in every way. At every spot they have really good players. The size is obvious - that's just challenging for us on a normal night. I think it's an extra challenge- I mean they are really big. They play through their posts and they dominated us tonight on the points in the paint. We knew that was going to be tough, I was hoping we'd do it a little bit better, but moving forward we've got to find ways to minimize points in the paint.
UCLA Head Coach Cori Close
Opening Statement…
Yeah, thank you guys for being here, and just a lot of respect for Michigan State. Robyn (Fralick), I think, is doing a heck of a job building a program, and I don't think the way her team played tonight is reflective of how well they've been playing. And so, just want to give a shoutout to them in terms of how hard they compete and how much they kept at us, and preserving, they made us better in that way. So, credit to how they kept fighting.
 Â
On locking down Grace VanSlooten…
Yeah, the shots she hit, four of them were perimeter jump shots. I've been watching Grace for a long time, and she's a heck of a player. She's going to be playing at the next level, I think. But the reality is she doesn't have to go against people like Lauren Betts very much. And so, especially in the first half, we switched all the ball screens except with Lauren (Betts) and Grace (VanSlooten) so that we could keep that matchup best we could. And I think one of the reasons we were able to do that is we were really trying to take away their right-hand drives. They have some really dominant downhill drivers when they can get to that right hand, and what that does is it forces rotation if we don't take that away one on one, and now Grace (VanSlooten) is free on the offensive glass and that's where she really cleans up a lot of the time. Because we took away those right-hand drives, we were able to stay home on the matchup with Lauren (Betts) versus Grace (VanSlooten), and that's an advantage we have and that's why we were able to do that.
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On the rebounding advantage UCLA held…
Well, I mean, its effort, and I thought they did a great job in the second half. I thought they beat us to all the loose balls and all the rebounding situations in the second half. But in the first half, again, when you don't allow teams to find advantages and force rotations, you're going to have the advantage on the box outs as well. And so, that's not just Grace (VanSlooten) that's everybody across the board. That is what you saw. We really respected them. We thought this was going to be a possession game. We did not do a good job of taking care of the ball, but we thought if we could out-rebound them and take care of the ball, even if we just get even possessions. But if we got more possessions, I thought we probably had more weapons to be able to win. I thought they were going to press us even more. But I think the few first two times they pressed us, we got really easy shots on the other end, and so they backed off a little bit. But they're a really good rebounding team, but it goes back to forcing rotation. So, when you flip that around, when you have someone like Lauren (Betts) who forces rotation on almost every catch and forces you to do those kinds of advantage plays on the other side. Well, that's what opened up some of our guard rebounding. And some of fore players attacking from that because conversely, we were forcing them to get into rotation almost every time. And it's really hard, once you're in a rotation, to get out and make contact on all those box outs.
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Players Mentioned
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