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Michigan State’s women’s basketball double-digit comeback fell short of No. 22 Illin in the final minute as women’s basketball head coach Susie Merchant watched from home.Ois (16-5, 6-4). The Spartans eventually lost him 86-76.

Junior guard Makira Cook has been cooking up the offensive end all night for the Fighting Illini.6 points.

In Associate Head Coach Dean Lockwood’s first game as head coach of the season, the Spartans hot start.

It took eight minutes before the first media timeout was called, but in the meantime MSU had scored 14 points, giving them a one-point lead with two minutes left in the first quarter. Graduate guard Kamalia McDaniel and her sophomore guard Dee Dee Hagemann both got off to strong starts with his 5s and his 3-1 piece.Hagemann added another bucket before the final buzzer of the quarter to extend the team’s lead to his three, with a total of seven.

It was a different story in the second quarter, as the Fighting Illini started to build up their energy midway through. Use.

Cook led Illinois in the first half and scored eight points in the second quarter of the game to push the total to 10 with that pointment.

MSU struggled with turnovers in the second quarter, with Illinois pushing their lead to double digits minutes before both teams entered the locker room. They dealt the ball five times in the second quarter and a total of seven times in the first 20 m.Inus.

Early in the second half, both teams went back and forth as Illinois held an eight-point lead in five minutes. Cook continued to issue MSUs as he had six in that span. McDaniel helped keep the Spartans in the game at that point, drilling two of his 3-pointers to score his team-high 13 points. The first 25 minutes of game action.

The Spartans began to find their feet midway through the third period.Within U2.

Illinois answered quickly in the final minutes of the quarter, entering with a nine-point advantage in the final ten minutes. Former Spartan and junior forward Kendall Bostick was in trouble as he scored six in his last two minutes.quarter f.

Fighting Illini was forced to call a timeout early in the fourth quarter as MSU extended their lead to 14 within the first minute. final quarter.

The Spartans continued to fight in the final minutes of the game, but the Fighting Illini was too much for MSU. A late bucket couple of Joyner and McDaniel cut the deficit to four in the final minute, but Illinois held on thanks to a free throw with junior guard Genesis Bryant. cooking.

Sophomore forward Matilda Ek was out all night, managing only 4 points, going 2-8 off the field and 0-5 off the field. deep.

The loss drops Sparta to 11-10 on the year and 3-7 in conference play.They travel to Nebraska for an outing next Thursday8:30 PM on the night of February 2