BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2024

Robyn Fralick

Julia Ayrault

Target Center

Michigan State Spartans

Postgame Press Conference

Nebraska - 73, Michigan State - 61

ROBYN FRALICK: A lot of credit to Nebraska. I thought they played a really good game. Clearly they really hurt us on the glass, especially early in the game when we had some good momentum. So credit to them. They got a nice team.

For us, disappointing, but I think a lot to learn from it. We feel encouraged that we still have a lot of meaningful basketball left in front of us. We'll have to learn and regroup.

Q. Julia, what did you see just in that matchup with Alexis Markowski throughout the game?

JULIA AYRAULT: Obviously she's a tremendous player, so we tried to take some of that away and just kind of focus on forcing her out a little bit.

She had a great game. She double-doubled. So she played great. Just kind of for me just trying to stay focused on that and kind of doing more stuff off the dribble.

Q. What does this next week and a half look for you? Obviously the Big Ten is one of the conferences that plays the women's tournament before the men's. As you said, you still have meaningful basketball to play. Now that this part of March is over, how do you change the outlook and kind of just keep moving forward?

ROBYN FRALICK: I think we'll get a little time to rest, which will be helpful for this time of the year. Then you get back to work. I think you've got to be good at what you're good at, and I think you've got to be good at the things that happen all the time.

We'll have more opportunities to work on that, but we'll also get some time to rest and reset.

Q. What do you feel changed for you guys offensively? Kind of just the slower middle two quarters.

JULIA AYRAULT: What do I feel changed?

Q. Yeah, on the offensive end.

JULIA AYRAULT: I would say we talked a little bit about just kind of inside-out basketball. I thought second half we did a better job of just kind of moving it and got some better looks and better shots.

I felt like it picked up a little bit in the first half, but obviously a slow start and a slow first half for us.

Q. You guys had a bye, and Nebraska talked about how there is a little bit of an advantage to maybe playing a day before, getting a feel for the scenery, obviously at playing in an NBA, WNBA arena. Do you think there's an advantage to maybe playing the day before and getting your feet wet on the court?

ROBYN FRALICK: I don't know. I'm sure somebody's done some statistics on that, so there's data behind it. We always say in our program, when it's time to hoop, we hoop. If that's whatever gym, morning, night, cold, hot.

I don't know if it's an advantage or a disadvantage. I know we were really happy to finish as the 4th seed, and then today you've got to come and play good basketball.