The Oakland women’s basketball team struggled in an 85-39 blowout loss at the hands of the Michigan State Spartans (MSU) at the Breslin Center on Tuesday, Nov. 15. 

Oakland hung around for a quarter, but extremely poor second and third quarters resulted in the demise of the Golden Grizzlies. After the first quarter, Oakland trailed by only eight points, 23-15.

However, the Spartan lead would only grow from there. Oakland was outscored by a 16-point margin in the second quarter, and MSU carried a 24-point lead into the halftime locker room.

In the second quarter, Oakland shot an unbelievably poor 1-15 from the floor, including 0-4 from deep. Although MSU only shot 5-15 from the floor and 1-7 from behind the arc, the Spartans took a major advantage into the locker room thanks to the abysmal shooting performance from the Golden Grizzlies. 

The Spartans scored almost half of their second-quarter points at the free throw line. They got to the charity stripe 11 times in the quarter, and they sank nine of those shots. 

Oakland’s shooting woes continued in a major way to begin the second half, although it did improve — slightly.

The Golden Grizzlies, once again, shot the ball 15 times in the third quarter, but one more shot was able to fall, and Oakland came away with a 2-15 shooting performance in the third quarter. 

Through the middle 20 minutes of game action, Oakland shot 3-30 from the floor. If that mark wasn’t bad enough, Oakland had yet to make a 3-pointer through three quarters of play.

The Golden Grizzlies attempted four 3-pointers in each of the first three quarters, but they were unable to hit on any of them, and they began the game 0-12 from deep. 

Although the Grizzlies’ shooting improved in the fourth quarter, MSU had led Oakland 65-24 through three quarters, and the latter team’s fate had already been decided.

With the loss, Oakland fell to 2-1 on the season as nonconference play continues. The Golden Grizzlies will travel to Champaign, Illinois this week to take on another Big Ten opponent. 

It should be an interesting game for Oakland sophomore Aaliyah McQueen, who played one season at Illinois before transferring to Oakland at the beginning of last season. 

McQueen played in 19 games for the Illini as a freshman, and she averaged 9.6 minutes per game. Last year as a sophomore, McQueen played in 19 games once again, but she averaged 11.4 minutes per game and 5.1 points.

After the trip to Illinois, Oakland will head east to compete in the TD Bank Classic in Burlington, Vermont. Oakland will take on Siena College to begin, and then, based on various results, will either take on Vermont or Stonehill.

Following the TD Bank Classic, the Golden Grizzlies will begin conference play with back-to-back road games against Cleveland State and Purdue Fort Wayne on Dec. 2 and Dec. 4, respectively.