New Michigan State women's basketball coach Robyn Fralick fixes programs. Can she do it for MSU?

MINNEAPOLIS — For the first time since 2006, the Michigan State women's basketball team will begin a season without Suzy Merchant, the program's all-time winningest coach, at the helm.

The Robyn Fralick era began March 31, when the program's sixth head coach mapped out her vision.

On Monday, she walked into her first Big Ten Media Days at Target Center, and Fralick said she had a lot of work to do in the last six months to prepare for the season.

"Suzy did a fabulous job, I mean to be so invested in the community and university to have so much success is something we're really proud of," Fralick said. "Now, how do you put your own stamp on it? I think you have to be yourself. ... Being true to who you are, what you believe and being transparent about that with the kids.

"I'm not naïve to the fact when you come in as a new leader with a new team, there's a lot of emotional continuum that goes with that. New, exciting, challenging, frustrating, as we all sort of do this together. I think the biggest thing is we just name it. There's a challenge in this, and we're going to be in this together; let's figure out how to do that."

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Fralick is no coaching novice. She coached at Division II Ashland for three years (2015-18) where she went 104-3 — the highest winning percentage in NCAA history with a minimum of 100 games coached in any sport — won 2017 national championship and finished as the 2018 runner-up.

She was hired at Bowling Green in 2018, taking over a Falcons program that was in the Mid-American Conference basement. By her third year, she won a league championship and last season, she tied a program-record with 31 wins and made the NIT Final Four.

Still, she wasn't the coach the MSU players had committed to originally.

"(We) did have a lot of questions," admitted junior guard Deedee Hagemann. "But when Coach Fralick did come in, she made it very easy to start building a relationship and I feel like that's why the majority of us stayed."

"I second that," added fifth-year standout guard Moira Joiner. "I think she's very communicative and what she expects is consistent. She tells you the truth and doesn't beat around the bush, so that was very refreshing."

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Eight of MSU's players from last year's roster remained, Joiner the most proven among them, having averaged 10.1 points and 4.8 rebounds per game. That said, neither Hagemann or Joiner wanted to focus much on last season, which saw the program miss the NCAA tournament for just the fourth time since 2003.

It's not that it was a total catastrophe — MSU extended its streak to 22 straight seasons where it finished at .500 or above, and was one of just a handful of teams to defeat future No. 1-seed Indiana.

But last season carried a great deal of adversity. Not only was there a tragic on-campus shooting, but Merchant missed the final two months of the season after she suffered an "undisclosed medical event" that caused a single-car crash.

"As a team we've faced a lot of adversity and I think that makes us stronger," Joiner said. "The transition and all of last year, it made our team closer too, so I think that will surprise a lot of people this year.

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Fralick believes the fastest path back to the NCAA tournament is through the five core values she's brought with her at each stop on her coaching journey: Be a great teammate, manners matter, trust, toughness and commitment.

From there, it will be about accepting the learning curve that comes with Fralick bringing in a new style of play, predicated on turning opponents over — Bowling Green was No. 2 in the nation in turnover margin last year — sharing the ball, and getting up and down the court, like her national title team at Ashland that averaged 98 points per game.

"Together basketball, disruptive basketball, with pace but with purpose," Fralick explained. "People think pace means run fast and shoot fast but pace really means focused effort to fight for the best shot."

That was music to Hagemann's ears, when she had her sit down with Fralick. The Detroit native stands just 5-foot-7, and is a quick down-hill guard who can also dish it; she scored 9.3 points per game and was sixth in the Big Ten at 4.9 assists a year ago.

Though the Spartans lost leading scorer Kamaria McDaniel (14.2 points) to graduation and the second-leading scorer Matilda Ekh (11.8 points) to the transfer portal (Virginia Tech), they brought in a pair of proven players through the portal in Lauren Ross (Western Michigan) and Jocelyn Tate (Bowling Green).

Ross, a 5-10 guard, led the MAC at 21.8 points per game last season before a season-ending knee injury, while Tate, a 5-10 wing, played in 70 games for Fralick at BGSU and averaged 8.4 points and a team-best 6.1 rebounds.

Both are expected to play key roles, as is Gabby Elliott, a Detroit native who spent her first two college seasons at Clemson, but transferred to East Lansing last year. In her Spartans debut, she put up 13 points and six rebounds, before she tore her ACL in December and missed the remainder of the season.

"At Bowling Green, we went from last place to first place in my third year," Fralick said. "If you would have asked me when I took over the job in year three are you going to win the league, I would have said you're crazy. So you know, you don't know.

"But I know were going to consistently stay in pursuit of getting better and building our team step by step."

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State women's hoops ready to turn page after long last season