The Spartans and coach Joanne P McCallie entered the 2005 season in a position that was entirely new for the program. The 2004 team had tied for the regular season championship, won the post season Big 10 Tournament and advanced to the National Championship game before being eliminated from the NCAA tournament. While two key players graduated after that season, the team returned its two best players and a solid group of others. They also returned to expectations previously unheard of in MSU history.
So the biggest question facing the Spartans was if their performance would match the expectations. The answer was not quite.
Any team that has the success MSU had in the 2004-05 season has to guard against complacency. McCallie struggled with this issue all season with her team. She complained many times about how proud her players were of their Final 4 performance. The problem is that the players do not consciously let down. They think that they are working as hard as ever but they aren’t. The Spartans also had a tendency to play hard in spurts. There were several games when they did not turn on the intensity until late in the game. Sometimes that was good enough, sometimes it wasn’t.
But their problems were not limited to their approach to the game. McCallie had to replace two key players, point guard Kristin Haynie and center Kelly Roehrig. Haynie made a much bigger contribution than Roehrig, but it was Roehrig who proved the more difficult to replace. The Spartans used a rotation of Lindsay Bowen, Victoria Lucas-Perry, Rene Haynes and Courtney Davidson at the point spot. While this is never ideal, the overall play was adequateThe same could not be said for the center position. The Spartans were never adequately able to replace Roehrig. Freshman Aisha Jefferson had an excellent season, but she isn’t a center. Myisha Bannister was beginning to have an impact when she tore her acl. Laura Hall, who was counted on to step in, was never able to make a significant contribution. The result was a two-fold problem. They lost Roehrig’s production and teams were able to double team Liz Shimek. As expected Shimek had an exceptional senior season. She left as the leading scorer and rebounder in MSU history and almost certainly the best player in the program’s history. But she could be held in check when the Spartans played teams with two excellent post players. This hurt MSU enormously at times.
Shimek’s running mate, Lindsay Bowen, also had the type of senior season one would expect. Her numbers were down somewhat but that is more reflective of the amount of time she spent at point guard than it was of a decline in her performance.
Although the Spartans were a good team in 2005, their season was disappointing. Several players who had been counted on did not step up and the team struggled to handle their previous year’s success. The latter is not really surprising. If they learn what they need to learn from the season, then that will be the most valuable outcome of the 2005 season.
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