Will the Spartans take down the Ivy League champions?
The Michigan State Women’s Basketball team is off to the Big Dance too. And like the men’s team, they are placed in the region of the top overall team. Unlike the men’s team, however, the end of the women’s season was their worst stretch, at least as far as wins and losses are concerned. The Spartans lost three of their last five regular season games and then lost in their first game of the Big Ten Tournament despite having received a bye and playing an Iowa team that had to play the day before.
If there is a silver lining in this, it is that MSU got some game experience against some of the top teams in the nation. Those three late season losses were against a pair of teams that received 1-seeds in the NCAA Tournament (USC and UCLA) and a 4-seed (Ohio State). So hopefully MSU is battle tested now and is good for knocking out a higher ranked team to get out of the opening weekend.
Before we get that far, let’s look at MSU’s first round opponent. The Harvard Crimson finished their regular season with a 22-4 record, including an 11-3 mark in conference, good for third in the Ivy League. In the Ivy League Tournament, they defeated the two teams that finished ahead of them, Princeton and Columbia, by three points each to claim the trophy. All three of those teams are in the NCAA Tournament, though Princeton and Columbia are playing in the first four games. Harvard gets to skip that nuisance and go directly to the field of 64 as a ten-seed.
Last year, Harvard did not play in the postseason. In 2022-23, they made the quarterfinals of the NIT.
Looking at the Crimson’s roster, there is one name to know: Harmoni Turner. Harmoni, a 5’10” senior guard plays the most minutes, scores the most points, gets the most rebounds and assists and steals (and turnovers), and has the highest 3-point percentage. Her 22.5 PPG is nearly a full 10 points higher than her nearest teammate. That teammate is Elena Rodriguez, a 6’2” senior from Spain who averages 11.9 PPG. She leads Harvard with a 54.2 FG % and is top two or three in all the other important categories. No one else averages over 7 PPG, and as a team they are scoring 69.4.
In comparison, Michigan State has been scoring 79.5 points per game this year, and that has been against arguably tougher competition than Harvard sees in the Ivy League. And while we don’t have anyone who scores at the volume that Harmoni Turner does, we do have three women – Grace VanSlooten, Julia Ayrault, and Theryn Hallock – who all average over 13.5 PPG.
MSU and Harvard will tip off at 4:30 PM ET on Saturday 3/22. The game will be televised on ESPNEWS. The strategy for this game needs to be to minimize Turner’s impact. Do that, and MSU should be dancing on to the round of 32.