Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State women's basketball's NCAA tournament draw – Harvard and perhaps N.C. State

Michigan State's women's basketball team is in the NCAA tournament for the second straight year.

1. This is an opportunity for MSU to earn some NCAA tournament respect

Michigan State’s women’s basketball program still isn't quite getting the respect it will if it becomes a perennial NCAA tournament team. The Spartans are the No. 7 seed in the Spokane Regional, beginning play in Raleigh, North Carolina, against 10-seed Harvard on Saturday.

If the Spartans get past Harvard, they’ll likely fast 2-seed and host N.C. State on Monday. Tip times are coming later tonight.

This is MSU’s highest seed since being a 4 seed in 2016. For a while, the Spartans were on track to perhaps get a 4 seed this season — which would have meant hosting the first two rounds — before they lost six of their last 10 games, albeit all six to NCAA tournament teams, including USC and UCLA, both 1 seeds.

Even so, a 6 seed wouldn’t have been out of place, given that the Spartans are No. 21 in the NCAA’s NET rankings and No. 27 via the analytics site HerHoopstats.com. Michigan, lower in the NET (23) and one spot better by HerHoop (26), did get a 6 seed, though the Wolverines were playing better down the stretch. Last season, MSU deserved better than the 9 seed that it got. The program doesn’t yet have the brand to buy itself a seed line or two on reputation — like N.C. State did this season. The host Wolfpack are 16 in the NET and 13 on HerHoop, and they’re a No. 2 seed.

MSU will have to earn that respect. This is an opportunity to do it.

The Spartans will have had 16 days between their Big Ten tournament loss to Iowa and Saturday’s game against Harvard. It’s a lot, but MSU coach Robyn Fralick said Sunday that her team “needed a bit of a jolt.”

“We made great use of our time and I feel really good about where we are now,” MSU senior Julia Ayrault said.

2. Let’s talk Harvard

Harvard coach Carrie Moore cuts down the nets. Harvard beats Columbia, 74-71, for the Ivy League Women's Basketball Championship on Saturday at Brown University.

Fralick is very familiar with Harvard head coach Carrie Moore from a different time in both of their lives. Moore starred at Western Michigan in the mid-2000s while Fralick was a graduate assistant there. Moore, a Michigan native, left WMU as the school’s all-time leading scorer. She was also a heckuva sports writing intern at the Kalamazoo Gazette, from personal experience. This is her third season at Harvard, after stops as an assistant at Michigan, North Carolina, Princeton and Creighton.

“Great player, great person, great coach,” Fralick said Sunday. “She's done a really good job with Harvard.”

Harvard is 24-4 and finished third in the Ivy League, before winning the conference tournament, though the Ivy League has three teams in the NCAA tournament (Columbia and Princeton, too). Harvard is No. 34 in the NET and 36 via HerHoop, making its first NCAA tournament appearance in 18 years.

Crimson star Harmony Turner, a 5-10 senior guard, would be a standout in any league. She averages 22.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists and a 2.8 steals per game. She does turn the ball over at a pretty decent clip, but that’s because a lot of Harvard’s offense is on her. Turner’s usage rage is near the top of women’s college basketball. Where she’s most dangerous is as an outside shooter, including off the bounce. She makes about 36% from beyond the arc, but it’s a smooth-looking shot.

Harvard has some notable wins this year against Big Ten teams — in overtime at Indiana and by 25 at Northwestern.

The Crimson don’t play a schedule comparable to MSU, but defensively they hold teams to 37% shooting and less than 28% from beyond the arc, and were sixth-best nationally at points per play allowed. Offensively, they’re pretty good, but the numbers don’t jump out the same way.

Harvard's Harmoni Turner reacts on the court against Columbia in Saturday's Ivy League Championship Game. Harvard beats Columbia, 74-71, for the Ivy League Women's Basketball Championship on Saturday at Brown University.

3. MSU’s draw is tough but not impossible

A year ago the Spartans were “overjoyed” to be in the NCAA tournament, as Ayrault put it, and they had a horrible start against North Carolina and spent the rest of the game trying to claw their way back but never finding a groove.

They’re no longer just overjoyed to be in the tournament. They wanted a good seed and a decent path to make some noise. That’s tough from a 7 seed, but it could have been worse. The other three 2 seeds — Connecticut, Duke and TCU — are all higher rated in the metrics than N.C. State. The Wolfpack’s losses include to Cal and North Carolina. MSU beat Cal, and North Carolina is a similarly rated team to the Spartans. Granted, neither of those losses came on the Wolfpack's home court, where they’ll be for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.

Nonetheless, this is a more plausible path to a Sweet 16 for MSU than a year ago, when, even if the Spartans had gotten past the first round, host and behemoth South Carolina would have been waiting.

This MSU team has talked this season about wanting to win an NCAA tournament game. It’s important to them, a next step for the program. If they do that, they’ll get a pressure-free shot at N.C. State in a game that wouldn’t be impossible.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU women's basketball's NCAA tournament draw: 3 quick takes

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