INDIANAPOLIS — The Terrapins women’s basketball team took an eight-point lead in the third quarter Sunday, but Michigan State star forward Aerial Powers appeared poised to lead her team back.
Powers, the 12th-highest scorer in the nation at 21.9 points per game, called for a screen on guard Brene Moseley. Powers went around the screen and buried a jumper before anyone could come out on her. On the next possession, Powers rejected the screen, took two dribbles and drilled a mid-range jumper.
The Spartans cut the lead in half in 33 seconds, and their unanimous first-team All-Big Ten selection seemed to find a rhythm in the process.
But as the clock ticked down in the Terps’ eventual 60-44 win, which clinched their second straight Big Ten Tournament title, Powers never did find her groove. After not scoring in the first half, she finished with eight points on 3-for-12 shooting and committed a team-high six turnovers. She managed to earn a spot on the all-tournament team in large part due to averaging 28.5 points and 12 rebounds in her first two tournament games.
She wouldn’t return to East Lansing, Michigan, as a Big Ten champion, though.
“Our team was able to hone in on her as a collective unit to slow her down, knowing that she was kind of the engine that drives them,” said guard Kristen Confroy, who guarded Powers at times throughout the game. “She’s a great player, so she’s going to get her points, so we needed to really limit her touches as much as possible and just really try to contain her.”
After Powers connected on back-to-back shots in the third quarter — one of the lone highlights of her performance — she didn’t score again until there was less than five minutes left in the game.
And not long after the 6-foot redshirt junior converted a meaningless layup, the Terps celebrated yet another title during their short stint in the Big Ten.
Guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, who was named the tournament’s most outstanding player, said the Terps wanted to make Powers uncomfortable, especially when she rose to shoot from the perimeter. Powers scored 31 points at Xfinity Center in Michigan State’s loss Feb. 5, something the Terps were determined to prevent this time around.
“We wanted to stay down and be disciplined on her and her tendencies, especially on her because she’s the best player on her team,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “So just keying in on her and forcing other people to make plays.”
Spartans guard Tori Jankoska stepped into the scoring role early on with Powers shut down, posting 10 of the team’s 26 points in the first half. It wasn’t a dominating performance, but in a half where the Terps shot 8-for-30, Jankoska’s effort helped Michigan State hold a two-point lead at intermission.
But in the second half, Jankoska’s production vanished.
She led the Michigan State with 12 points but missed all seven of her shots in the second half. And aside from Powers, center Jasmine Hines was the lone Spartans player to score more than six points.
In the first half, the Terps threw several different looks at Powers, as they used a zone and forced her into a deep 3-pointer on the Spartans’ first possession. Powers then had guard Chloe Pavlech and Confroy guard her on back-to-back trips. The Terps implemented their full-court zone later in the quarter, and Powers missed a three in transition.
She took herself out of the game in the second quarter after picking up her second personal foul less than a minute into the second quarter. Powers, who played just 11 minutes in the half, sat on the bench the rest of the frame.
In the postgame press conference, a reporter asked Powers how much the early foul trouble affected her performance. She immediately denied its importance.
“I wouldn’t say it took me out of things,” Powers said. “Our team did a good job in the first half of containing Maryland, and we were up by two going into … the second half. I just had a bad night, I guess.”
A “bad night” the Terps defense appeared to have a lot to do with.
