The Huskies suffered their first home loss of the season at the hands of the high-octane Spartans
SEATTLE — The No. 23 Washington Huskies women's basketball team's usually potent offense was stifled in an 82-67 loss against the No. 15 Michigan State Spartans on Jan. 8 at Alaska Airlines Arena.
The loss dropped Washington's overall record to 12-3 and 2-2 in Big Ten play. It was UW's first home loss of the season.
Before the Spartans took complete control of the battle between top 25 squads, the Huskies looked to be rolling to their second-straight upset win against a ranked opponent.
The two sides went back-and-forth through most of the first quarter. The Dawgs owned a narrow advantage, 15-4, with four minutes, four seconds left in the opening frame.
Washington ended the first 10 minutes of the game on a 10-0 run to go into the second quarter up 25-14.
Huskies senior guard Elle Ladine hit four 3-pointers in the first quarter to give her 12 in the first 10 minutes.
Ladine finished Thursday with 15 points, all from beyond the arc. She went 5-for-7 from 3-point range and 5-for-12 from the floor. She also had four rebounds and a steal.
"I would say (I was) making the right reads," Ladine said after the game. "I was just not playing hesitantly. Just having confidence in my shot and shooting when I'm open."
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The second quarter marked the turning point of the game for Michigan State.
For the first half of the second quarter, the two sides exchanged buckets, including Ladine's last 3-pointer of the night, and Washington was able to maintain a double-digit advantage.
The Huskies led 36-26 with 4:44 left in the first half.
The Spartans proceeded to go on a 13-0 run to close out the second quarter and went into halftime with a 39-36 lead.
Michigan State was able to force an uncharacteristically inefficient night from the floor for junior guard Sayvia Sellers.
The Anchorage, Ala., native had two points in the first half on a 1-for-7 mark from the floor. She went 0-for-4 from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes.
Sellers, who fouled out with 4:04 left in the fourth quarter, scored all 14 of her points in the second half. She reached that mark with a 5-for-19 clip from the floor (2-for-11 from 3-point range) and added two rebounds, four assists and two steals.
A pair of Washington 3-pointers from sophomore guard Avery Howell and senior guard Hannah Stines in the first minute-and-a-half of the third gave the Dawgs a 42-41 lead. It was the last time the Huskies didn't trail Thursday.
Howell was UW's only other double-digit scorer aside from Sellers and Ladine.
Howell finished the game with 10 points on 2-for-6 shooting (4-for-4 from the free-throw line), pulled in four rebounds and had a block and a steal.
After Stines' triple, the Spartans went on another 13-0 run en route to a 54-42 lead with 5:51 left in the frame.
Michigan State held Washington to just five more points the rest of the third and went into the final quarter leading 62-47.
In the first three quarters, the Huskies committed 17 turnovers in which the Spartans scored 19 points off of.
Many turnovers forced by Michigan State were via a stout full-court defense that continued to press Washington as the game went on.
"I think that was a little bit on us, just slowing down," Stines said in a postgame interview. "Slowing our pace down. We have a lot of great ball-handlers on our team and we can handle that pressure, so just learning from it and we'll do better next time."
In the fourth quarter, the Spartans bolstered their lead to 22 points with 5:32 left, leaving too big of a hole for the Huskies to dig themselves out of.
"We looked back on the Michigan game and there were a lot of things that we could have done better in that game, as well," Washington coach Tina Langley said after the game. "Win or loss, you're gonna look back and say 'I could have done something better.' I think the thing the team really (recognized) in the locker room was just our defense. Our defense broke down a lot today."
Washington will have a break against ranked competition and will next be in action against Purdue at Purdue at 11 a.m. PT on Jan. 11 at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind.
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