Michigan State women's basketball hangs on late to complete rivalry sweep of Michigan

ANN ARBOR — Tory Ozment was the lone player on the Michigan State women's basketball roster who had experienced a road win in Ann Arbor entering Sunday.

The graduate student and sixth-year guard/forward helped the rest of her teammates get to enjoy the same experience.

Ozment was among four players in double figures with a team-high 16 points for the Spartans, who held on in the final minutes to record a 70-66 victory over rival Michigan at Crisler Center on Sunday afternoon.

The win was the first in Ann Arbor since 2019 for MSU, which completed its first regular-season sweep of the Wolverines since that same 2018-19 season.

"I was a young freshman watching a lot of the upperclassmen and learning from them (back in 2019)," said Ozment, who played in a minute off the bench in that victory. "Now it's kind of roles reversed and I'm that upperclassman. I was on the floor today kind of leading everyone. It's been fun. It's been a long time since we swept them. To kind of start my career like that and to end it like that ― that's really special."

MSU (18-7, 8-6 Big Ten) got a key late jumper from Moira Joiner in the final 15 seconds while surviving in the late stages after starters Julia Ayrault and Jocelyn Tate had fouled out and Tate had also been assessed a technical foul. Michigan (16-11), 7-8) went scoreless over the final 2:36 after scoring five unanswered points to pull within two following the technical foul Tate.

"Man, it was awesome to see that (shot) go in to put it to a two-possession game at that point and then for us to come out and get a stop," MSU coach Robyn Fralick said. "That was a big step forward for us. It's something we've been talking a lot about is getting critical stops. (Today) we were able to do that."

The win was the second this season for MSU in games decided by less than five points and first since last month's home victory over Maryland.

DeeDee Hagemann added 14 points, Ayrault scored 13 points and Theryn Hallock had 11 points for MSU, which ended a two-game losing streak.

Laila Phelia had a game-high 23 points and added seven rebounds for Michigan, which dropped its second straight.

"Obviously (I'm) disappointed with the result," Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. "I thought we put ourselves in a position to come back. It was a game of runs by both teams and I thought down the stretch we really put ourselves in a position after the technical foul to be successful. Whether that was free throws or buckets, we didn't get things to fall our way down the stretch. It was a great basketball game and game of runs."

One of the key runs for the Spartans came in the third quarter after Michigan had overcome a five-point halftime deficit to build a 48-41 advantage. Following a timeout by Fralick, MSU closed the quarter with a 15-2 run over the final 4:16 that featured 13 unanswered points to build a lead it never relinquished even as the Wolverines threatened late.

"I think that's a testament to kind of what we've done all year," Ozment said. "We've been resilient, we've been tough. That's kind of what we put our identity in. We knew it was a game of runs going in. They're a good team obviously so you have to respect them. We wanted to be resilient down the line. We knew we had enough. We stayed poised, we stayed calm, we stayed collected and we played together."

Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on X @brian_calloway.