Michigan State found early success in the first half against No. 1-seeded Indiana in the quarterfinal round of the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament in Minneapolis on Friday, but was unable to sustain it a full four quarters as the Spartans lost 94-85.

The No. 2-ranked Hoosiers were able to flip the script on scoring between halves as the short turnaround time started to show its wear on the Spartans.

Michigan State drops to 16-14 on the season and exits the 2023 Big Ten Tournament to await its fate on a potential postseason bid. MSU entered the day ranked No. 47 in the NET and is not projected to make the NCAA Tournament field. Selection Sunday for the 68-team NCAA Women's Tournament is scheduled for Sunday, March 12. The Postseason WNIT will follow with its announcement of a 64-team field later that same evening.

Kamaria McDaniel recorded her career-high at Michigan State and led all scoring for the day with 32 points against Indiana on Friday, though she fell short of her overall career-high of 40 versus Pittsburgh in 2019. McDaniel added seven boards, second on the team, and added one assist before fouling out late in the fourth quarter.

DeeDee Hagemann added 18 points, while notching the team-high in assists (four) and steals (three). Moira Joiner added 16 points on 4-of-9 shooting from 3-point range and came just shy of a double-double with nine boards. Joiner also dished two helpers and grabbed two steals.

Indiana's Mackenzie Holmes led four Hoosiers in scoring with 27 points, while Sara Scalia also hit 20. Chloe Moore-McNeil managed a double-double on the day with 19 points and 11 assists.

The Spartans came out hot in the opening quarter. After the Hoosiers were able to trim their deficit to 5-4 on a pair of free throws by Holmes, the Spartans responded with a 9-0 run to open up a 13-4 lead with 3:50 left. A 3-pointer by McDaniel with 17 seconds remaining opened up a 24-14 advantage for MSU to close the first quarter. Michigan State managed five points off of six Indiana turnovers, and another five points off of five offensive boards. A stifling defense held Indiana to just 4-of-14 shooting.

MSU continued its success in the second quarter early, twice pushing its advantage to 12-points by the midway point. Ball security proved a program for the Spartans as the Hoosiers were able to score nine points off four turnovers by the Spartans.

Indiana was able to trim the MSU advantage to six points by the half with MSU leading 40-34. Michigan State closed out the first half going 8-of-15 from 3-point range. McDaniel already had 15 points by the half and was a perfect 3-of-3 from deep, while Joiner was 3-of-6 for all nine of her points. Indiana was just 10-of-25 from the field in the first half, meanwhile, with nine turnovers.

Indiana was able to flex its offensive muscle in the third quarter and show why it won the Big Ten and is ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press and Coaches polls. The Hoosiers outscored the Spartans 25-18 in the third stanza, quickly mounting a 5-0 run in the first minute before MSU could respond. After pushing its lead back to out five points on three free throws by Hagemann with 7:25 remaining, IU used a 6-2 run to make it a one-point game by the midway point.

After Indiana first tied it up and then later took the go-ahead score with 3:55, McDaniel mounted her own 4-0 run to retake the lead for MSU, up 53-52. The teams would trade the lead three more times down the stretch with the Hoosiers eventually seizing the lead for good, thanks to a 3-pointer by Moore-McNeil with 1:39 remaining. By the final buzzer in the third quarter, it was 59-58 with Indiana in the lead.

The fourth quarter saw Indiana hit two 3-pointers for a 6-0 run in the opening minutes, while the Spartans suffered a 3:36 field goal drought that started in the third quarter. After the Hoosiers gained a seven-point advantage, McDaniel broke the drought with a second-chance jumper and Joiner hit the second of two free throws to trim IU's lead to 65-62 with 6:34 remaining. It never got closer than that from there.

Indiana was able to stretch its lead out to 12 with 2:20 remaining and the game looked over with 2:20 left. The Spartans refused to go quietly and mounted a 10-2 run over just 24 seconds as the final minute arrived of game play. Michigan State cut its deficit to five points with the run, trailing 85-80. MSU was forced to resort to fouling from there and IU hit nine free throws in the final 35 seconds of game action to finish 94-85.

Michigan State finished the game just 8-of-19 on layup attempts and went just 3-of-13 from 3-point range in the second half. MSU also dropped to 11-of-32 from the field in the second half after managing 14-of-24 in the first half. IU was able to score 12 points off six Spartan second-half turnovers and flipped its own scoring script with 8-of-14 shooting from beyond the arc. The Hoosiers also went 20-of-23 from the charity stripe in the second half and shot an impressive 16-of-29 from the field after MSU held them to 10-of-25 in the first half.

Michigan State will return to East Lansing after the loss and await to find out its postseason fate.

DEAN LOCKWOOD: Hard fought game. Love the way we started the game. Just, again, very aggressive. Kind of consistent with what we've been doing in our game plan.

Hit a few bumps in the road along the way, and again I want to credit Indiana. Indiana is a very good basketball team, very good basketball team, and they showed their mettle today what they're made of. Obviously just very solid.

Again, the start was good. Along the way, we missed several layups. We gave up some open threes -- I thought those two -- those were probably two of the biggest factors for us is missing some layups that either would have kept us in the lead or kept a little bit of a cushion or could have gotten us back in striking distance.

Some of those open threes that we gave up, we gave up 12 made threes, and certainly that was not what we wanted to do and talked about. So, again, I thought those things hurt us.

Overall, very, very proud of this team's grit and their effort and their fight. Again, I think they showed who they are and what they're made of, our team. We're very, very proud of them for that.

Obviously some technical things, some tactical things that we want to clean up, but I will tell you this. You can't -- all you can ask for is 100 percent of people's best, and I think we got that from our team today in terms of their effort level. So I'm proud of them for that.

Question: Kamaria, you had 32 today. It seemed like you were just on fire throughout the whole game. Could you speak to like what was working for you and just how you were able to be so dominant out there.

KAMARIA McDANIEL: First of all, I always go back to this time last year, I couldn't run, like I really struggled with my injury. So I see all of this as a bonus, and God is so good, and that's all I can say.

My teammates are amazing that give me the ball, and we got defensive stops, which opened up the open court and getting them fast breaks. So we were getting stops, and that was helping with momentum. So when you're playing good defense and your teammates are getting you the ball, I'm just able to kind of be myself and be that scorer that I've been.

A lot of credit to God, first of all. Credit to our grit on the defensive end because we have to get stops in order to get out in the open floor. I'm just grateful to be here, and God is good, man. My teammates are amazing. So that was the formula for that, not much of me individually.

Question: With everything that's gone down this season from Coach Merchant being out to the shooting to struggling to find consistency. Now that the future is up to the hands of the people who decide for the tournament going forward, can you just describe what it's been like to be on this team and just play for this school this year?

MOIRA JOINER: It's meant a lot. Being here for four years myself, you have -- sorry. (Crying). You go. Sorry, I can't.

KAMARIA McDANIEL: I think it's a testament to us coming together. We had this thing that just came about not too long ago, and it's unity of purpose. We're a unit, and we have the same purpose, and we just go with that every day. We've seen every piece of adversity you could possibly see -- the unthinkable, the unfathomable -- ooh, that's a big word. So we've seen it all, and we just take it as small as we have to take it.

Even if it's minute by minute, possession by possession, but we try to master every opportunity we get. Coach Dean says "in the moment and no regrets," and that's just been our motto. A lot of things have happened that's out of our control, and when stuff is out of your control, you have to put your focus towards the things you can control, and I think we have been a master of the controllables. That's why coaches and we're all proud because we could have folded a long time ago.

MOIRA JOINER: I was going to say, being a senior, it means a lot. Even like you've got to play for people that are leaving on this team and you've got to play for the university and everything we've been through there. So it just means everything, and I think it would be a mistake not to put our team in the tournament.

Question: Coach, this is the end of your season likely. How proud are you for the team that they battled, as you said, as hard as they did? I know the players addressed this, but how was it filling in for Suzy, which I'm sure was tough. How easy was it to see the players battle right till the end? I wanted your take on that as well.

DEAN LOCKWOOD: Absolutely. Thanks for the question. It was great. First of all, let me just credit our players and credit our team. They've been very supportive. They've been very receptive. We have a staff who's been outstanding, from our coaching staff, Maria and Kristin, to our support staff. Everyone has been supportive. There's been a synergy in the program.

Stemming from our sport administrator Ashton, our athletic director Alan Haller, it's been great.

I will tell you, directly to your question now, to watch the growth -- one of the things I said just the other day here, I believe, one of the real joys of coaching is to see growth and maturation. Winning is wonderful. Make no mistake, we're all in this to win. If you're not competitive, if you're not in this to win, it's hard to last very long, so that's just a given.

But one of the real joys of this profession and the real highs of coaching is to see growth and maturation in people, and especially when you see it as a team. There is no question that our team has grown and matured this year tremendously. For that, I am extremely proud of them, and I credit them, I credit the character of them. I credit the families from whom they come. It's just been a journey that has not been without challenge, but I credit them tremendously for the people they are and the character they are.

To your last piece, we're no quit. There is not one ounce of quit in us. So until we see that bracket and we're not in it, we're going to prepare to play in the tournament. There's no quit in us. When we see the bracket and Michigan State's not on it, okay, season's over, but I am not conceding until that point.

Question: You probably would be higher than a 9 seed in a lot of other conferences. How would you evaluate the strength of the Big Ten this year?

DEAN LOCKWOOD: Oh, my gosh, and I was in the SEC for 15 years. Some of you may know that, may not. But I will tell you -- again, we could argue this point. It's kind of like the greatest conversation, who's the greatest, all this stuff. You're never going to resolve it.

But I will tell you this, if I were a betting man -- which I'm not, for our compliance people -- I would bet on the Big Ten. This year is the best conference, top to bottom. I think South Carolina is other worldly. They're just really good. I think LSU is having a terrific season, Tennessee is third right now. There's some real good teams in that league, make no shade on them whatsoever.

But I tell you top to bottom I will take our league against any league in the country this year. I think our league top to bottom has shown in non-conference play and now here in conference play and where things are, I think they've shown who we are and of what we're capable. Arguably, it's the best league in the country, and no one's going to move me off of that.

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