{"id":2169,"date":"2023-04-01T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=2169"},"modified":"2023-04-01T03:47:33","modified_gmt":"2023-04-01T07:47:33","slug":"michigan-state-womens-basketball-robyn-fralick-hired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=2169","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State Women&#8217;s Basketball: Robyn Fralick is home run hire"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<h2>Michigan State women&#8217;s basketball had to replace Suzy Merchant this offseason and it did so with Bowling Green&#8217;s Robyn Fralick.<\/h2>\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Replacing a coach like Suzy Merchant is never easy because of the type of leader not only she was in the Michigan State women&#8217;s basketball program but at the school as well. Merchant will be missed but the women&#8217;s basketball program is headed in a new direction.<\/p>\r\n<p>The news broke early on Friday that Bowling Green head coach Robyn Fralick is headed to Michigan State to be the next head coach, replacing Merchant.<\/p>\r\n<p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Source: Bowling Green State University women\u2019s basketball coach Robyn Fralick has informed her team she is headed to Michigan State.<\/p>&mdash; Dave Briggs (@DBriggsBlade) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DBriggsBlade\/status\/1641888334954758144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 31, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\r\n<p>According to Dave Briggs, who is a sports columnist for the Toledo Blade, this is a \u201chome run hire for Michigan State.&#8221; Dave further went on to describe that Bowling Green was a team that plays \u201cfun, run-and-gun, in-your-face style.&#8221; This type of play has led to Fralick turning a program like Bowling Green into a contender and now she is headed back to East Lansing which, being a graduate from Okemos, is going to be like a homecoming. Now that it has been announced, next is to talk about the coach and why Michigan State fans should love this hire.<\/p>\r\n<p>Fralick started her coaching career as an assistant at Appalachian State. She moved around until 2015 when she was announced as the head coach of Ashland, a Division 2 school. During her time at Ashland, she went 104-3 with a national title, a regional semifinal appearance, and a runner-up in her last year. After her third year, Bowling Green decided to call and make the hire.<\/p>\r\n<p>Before this hire, Bowling Green was one of the worst teams in the MAC. This showed in Fralick\u2019s first year as Bowling Green went 9-21. Four years later, Bowling Green finished the season 31-7 with a Final Four appearance in the NIT. This is a dramatic improvement from a school that has not been good at women&#8217;s basketball before she came.<\/p>\r\n<p>During her coaching career at Bowling Green, Fralick had an 88-73 record. While this record might not stand out, this just shows that she can turn around a program in five years or less which is a good thing for Michigan State.<\/p>\r\n<p>The other good thing, especially for Fralick, is that this Michigan State team is in a much better position than what she walked in to at Bowling Green. This past season, Michigan State beat a very good team in Indiana and got an invite to the NIT, which Michigan State declined. If Fralick can turn around Bowling Green, I fully believe she can bring great talent and a great team to Michigan State.<\/p>\r\n<p>While it might take a few years, Fralick&#8217;s success described above should get Michigan State fans very excited and really demonstrates why this was called a \u201chome run hire.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a good hire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":2263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[189,289,290],"class_list":["post-2169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-michigan-state-womens-basketball","tag-robyn-fralick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}