Theryn Hallock and Grace VanSlooten each delivered one of their best offensive performances of the season.
And they helped the Michigan State women’s basketball team pick up its second straight Big Ten road victory.
Hallock set a new career high with 26 points and Grace VanSlooten added 24 points to lead the No. 22-ranked Spartans to an 86-68 victory over Illinois on Sunday.
The victory was the third straight for MSU, which improved to 15-3 overall and 5-2 in the Big Ten.
Hallock played a big role in helping the Spartans close out the win while putting together the best scoring performance of her career. She scored 17 points in the final quarter while making 8 of 11 shots from the field to surpass her previous career high of 24 points that she set in January 2024 against Purdue.
“She was dynamite,” MSU coach Robyn Fralick said. “(In the) fourth quarter they cut it to eight and we stopped fouling. We actually had continuous basketball. We got some stops and some rebounds and we were able to get some transition points. Theryn makes (the transition points) look easy because she’s so fast and she’s able to get behind the defense. We’ve been challenging her too on when to attack and decision making. I thought across the board she did a really good job of when to attack.”
VanSlooten had her second game with at least 20 points and fell a point shy of the season high she set against Vanderbilt in November. She was 9 of 14 from the field in 22 minutes off the bench and has scored in double figures in all but two games this season.
Julia Ayrault also reached double figures scoring for MSU and finished with 12 points.
Kendall Bostic, who began her college career at MSU, had a double-double to lead Illinois (13-5, 3-4) and finished with 20 points and 14 rebounds.
Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on X @brian_calloway.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Theryn Hallock, Grace VanSlooten lead MSU basketball past Illinois
