Michigan State Women's Basketball earns No. 5 seed in Sacramento Region, will face No. 12 Colorado State
The Spartans are set to make their third-straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
Michigan State is dancing for a third-straight season under head coach Robyn Fralick, earning the No. 5 seed in the Sacramento regional. The Spartans will face No. 12 Colorado State on Friday in Norman, Okla. It marks MSU's highest seed in the NCAA since earning the No. 4 seed in 2016.
The Spartans (22-8 overall, 11-7 in Big Ten play) and Rams (27-7 overall, 15-5 in Mountain West action) have met just once before. That non-conference regular season matchup was a 72-45 victory for MSU in Cancun, Mexico on Dec. 20, 2011.
For the Rams, a familiar face leads CSU in scoring in senior guard Lexus Bargesser who hails from Grass Lake, Mich. and played at Indiana for the past three seasons before transferring out to Fort Collins. Bargesser is averaging 15.2 points per game and is second on the boards for the team with 5.8 rebounds per game. She is second in assists (90) and in steals (43).
Sophomore guard Brooke Carlson is second in scoring with 11.3 ppg while leading the team in assists (105) and steals (46). Fellow sophomore guard Kloe Froebe is the final Ram averaging double figures in scoring with 10.7 ppg alongside the team high in rebounds, 6.8 per game. Senior guard Hannah Ronsiek adds 5.3 rpg alongside the team high in takeaways (53 steals).
While MSU had its best start in 15 years this season, opening the year 17-1, closing out the season against tougher competition results in a 3-6 finish that included bowing out to Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament last week. That resulted in the Spartans slipping from a top-4 seed that would have meant they hosted the first two rounds at the Breslin Center and instead will have to travel to Oklahoma now as the Sooners are the host.
The winner of Friday's matchup between MSU and CSU will face the winner of No. 4 seed Oklahoma and No. 13 seed Idaho.
The Spartans sit in the bracket with No. 1 seed South Carolina who will face the winner of No. 16 seed Southern University vs. No. 16 Samford who face off in the first four matchup. The Gamecocks being likely to advance will face No. 8 Clemson or No. 9 USC.
Elsewhere, No. 6 Washington will face No. 11 South Dakota State with the winner of that matchup facing No. 3 TCU or No. 14 UC San Diego.
No. 7 Georgia will play the winner of No. 10 Virginia vs. No. 10 Arizona State in another first four matchup. Awaiting that winner in the second round will be No. 2 Iowa or No. 15 Farleigh Dickinson.
