Nia Clouden reigns in second half as Michigan State women stun No. 4 Michigan, 63-57

EAST LANSING — When the going gets tough, stars need to flip a switch.

Down three to begin the second half after only scoring four points on 2-for-5 shooting, Michigan State women's basketball's Nia Clouden did just that as her 16 second-half points helped the Spartans rally to a 63-57 victory in the Breslin Center, stunning the No. 4 Michigan women's basketball and snapping its nine-game win streak.

Freshman forward Matilda Ekh delivered the dagger, though, as her two 3-pointers were enough to edge out the Wolverines.

Clouden, a senior guard, finished with 20 points and four assists. Her star counterpart from Ann Arbor, Naz Hillmon, struggled in the second half but still managed to score 27 points on 12-for-25 shooting while adding nine rebounds.

“Nia’s been a great player,” Michigan State coach Suzy Merchant said. “She wasn’t going to step off this floor without taking a win.”

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Michigan (20-3, 11-2 Big Ten) looked out of sorts on offense as second-leading scorer Leigha Brown was out with an injury; the Wolverines struggled to find a second scoring option.

In the first quarter, it appeared that the Wolverines were going to run away with it early as they got four consecutive baskets from four players to open on an 8-0 run. But freshman guard DeeDee Hagemann (Detroit Edison) downed a 3 for the Spartans (13-10, 7-5 Big Ten) to launch an 11-2 run for their first lead of the game. Junior center Taiyier Parks played a large part with six points and two offensive rebounds.

The Spartans did a nice job keeping the ball out of the hands of Hillmon, but each time she had the ball in her hands, she spun gold. Hillmon racked up 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting along with six boards — three on offense — in the first half.

Hagemann boosted the Spartans, as her eight points and three assists kept the Spartans within three at the half, at 29-26 U-M.

To open the second half, Clouden sank two 3-pointers and a layup to give the Spartans the lead halfway through the third quarter. Her teammates fed off her play as MSU freshman forward Isaline Alexander grinded in the paintfor a basket and a foul to push the lead to seven. Clouden followed with a floater off the backboard to push the lead to nine.

“We kind of knew that was going to happen,” senior guard Danielle Rauch said. “We did a really good job with (Clouden) in the first half, similar to the other night, I knew she was going to come out firing. Just trying to keep the ball out of her hands and not let her get shots off.”

Hillmon struggled meanwhile, going 2-for-8 from the field for four points.

Michigan, though, opened the fourth with a 7-0 run to cut the lead to two, as Hillmon’s shot began to fall once again. The Spartans also went nearly five minutes without a basket, allowing the Wolverines to crawl back into the game.

“I’ve never seen Naz take 25 shots and only go to the free throw line five times,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes-Arico said. “I’d like to see the stat with fouls drawn, but usually she draws a little bit more fouls than she drew tonight.”

But Ekh tbroke the seal with a shot clock-beating 3-pointer to push the Spartans' lead back to five, followed by a 3 to push their lead to four with 1:02 remaining. The Wolverines moved into fouling mode, but it wasn't enough.

"I thought (Isaline Alexander) was really good today," Merchant said. "The thing with Michigan is, Naz is a force. If you double too much, she’s a really good passer. So we were trying to dig a bit more and we felt if we could push her off and work really had to be a wall on wheels and make her shoot over us, with our physicality and our size, we thought it could be effective.”

Without Brown, Michigan's offense stagnated as they shot 40% from the field and just 27.3% from beyond the arc. Turnovers also proved costly, as U-M had 17.

“We lost our best player for the second game who’s our leading guard scorer and is a dynamic player,” Barnes-Arico said. “I think we’re trying to figure out where we're going to find 15 points a game.”

The Wolverines will look to rebound against Northwestern on the road at noon Sunday. Michigan State, looking for another NCAA tournament résumé-booster, will get another shot at a top-10 victory as they travel to Bloomington, Indiana, to face the Hoosiers at 3 p.m. Saturday.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State women's basketball stuns No. 4 Michigan women, 63-57