On Sunday, Michigan State women's basketball lost to Michigan in East Lansing. As 9,220 fans looked on, the Spartans started off the game strong. After MSU took a commanding lead in the first quarter, Michigan began slowly crawling back. The game ultimately ended with a final score of Michigan 77, Michigan State 67.

Following the game, Michigan head coach Kim Barnes Arico and her standout leader of the game, Leigha Brown, spoke to the media. Both Barnes Arico and Brown stated how difficult they knew this game was going to be, despite MSU's current record.

"Leigha (Brown) says her heart is still racing at the intensity at which they started the game," Barnes Arico began. "They came out just on fire, intense and playing hard ... It took us a minute (to get going)."

Brown and Barnes Arico closed their portion of the postgame press conference by stating how great the atmosphere was inside the Breslin Center.

"The ability to play in the Big Ten night in and night out (and) have that kind of energy for a women's basketball game is really special," Barnes Arico said.

With Michigan State head coach Suzy Merchant currently away from the team due to health issues, interim head coach Dean Lockwood continued to lead the Spartans on Sunday, and took questions after the game.

"I thought our first quarter was exactly the way we wanted to play that game ... We wanted to pressure, we wanted to move the ball, we moved their defense, we got great looks, we were finishing," Lockwood commented. "Then I thought our third and fourth quarters, we really deteriorated and deviated too much from how we wanted to play."

Lockwood really emphasized the fact that Michigan State missed more shots than Michigan took. MSU ended the game with 53 missed shots (24-for-77, 31.1%), while UM only had 49 total shots (making 23 and shooting 46.9% overall).

"Defense and rebounding can keep you in games," Lockwood summarized. "But you have to score to win games."

An overarching theme in all of Lockwood's answers was consistency. He touched on previous games in MSU's recent history where inconsistent play lost the Spartans the game in the end, and Sunday was no different. He pointed to consistency on defense or offense, consistency in individual players, and consistency in execution of overall game plans.

Lastly, Michigan State senior guard Moira Joiner and sophomore guard/forward Matilda Ekh came out to share some postgame thoughts. When asked about her six steals, Joiner said that was something she had been building up to in practice.

"I've been trying to be more handsy on defense, but that goes to my teammates, too, that are doing their jobs, so I can get in those passing lanes," Joiner said. "I'd say, we turned a team like Michigan over 20 times ... we need to do something with that."

Ekh broke down the differences in the first and second half by saying, "We worked hard and played together overall, and then in the second half ... I felt we almost started panicking a little bit when they started to get back and we just started playing as individuals. We stopped playing together ... We are not able to stay together for 40 minutes."

Finally both Ekh and Joiner stated it has been tough on the team not having Merchant around during this time. They echoed sentiments that they are in contact with her and are hoping she can be back with the squad soon.

Michigan State will look to rebound on the road at Wisconsin on Wednesday. The game is scheduled for 7 p.m. Eastern Time and can be watched on Big Ten Plus. In the meantime, join in on the conversation about the press conference in the Spartans Illustrated Message Board here.