OXFORD — Porsha Porter, Diamber Johnson, and the rest of the Mississippi State women’s basketball team picked the right time Thursday night to play through mistakes quickly.
With their lead being tested in the final five minutes, Porter delivered a five-point spurt that provided a cushion and Johnson added the dagger to lead MSU to a 51-46 victory against the University of Mississippi before a crowd of 1,294 at Tad Smith Coliseum.
Johnson, a senior guard from Pontotoc, continued her hot shooting in her final game in her “home away from home,” scoring a game-high 21 points on 7-of-13 shooting.
Johnson capped the evening in style by draining a 3-pointer on the left wing right in front of the Ole Miss fans seated at courtside. She put an exclamation point on the shot, which gave MSU a 51-43 lead with 1 minute, 31 seconds to play, with a salute that was similar to the one she gives to teammate Danielle Rector each time she leaves the bench in pregame introductions.
“I felt like I was in the moment of it all,” said Johnson, who improved to 3-1 at Tad Smith Coliseum, where she averaged 11.5 points per game in four games the past two seasons. “That is where all of the Ole Miss people were, and they were yelling stuff the whole game. It was just really a ‘That’s for you, be quiet kind of thing.’ ”
Johnson had one of her best shooting games of the season in front of her former basketball coach at Pontotoc High School. Four years ago, Johnson said her college decision came down to MSU and Ole Miss. She said there wasn’t a reason why she has had so much success on the Rebels’ home floor, but she said people told her she should “take the game personal” entering the matchup. She took the message to heart and remained calm, cool, and collected.
“We had a good team get-together and one of the things that was brought up was not playing on how you feel, just playing in the moment and dealing with that later and not being selfish,” Johnson said. “I was just not trying to worry about all of that stuff. (I just wanted to do) what my team needed me to step up and do.”
Johnson shook off attempts to contain her ability to create shots coming off the high screen. She worked free for a drive that gave MSU (12-6, 2-3 Southeastern Conference) its biggest lead of the second half, 36-28, with 12:04 to play. She then scored six of her team’s seven points, which included two jump shots, in a key stretch that helped the Lady Bulldogs keep the lead in the final minutes.
“I thought down the stretch she handled the game and managed the game the way she needed to,” MSU coach Sharon Fanning-Otis said. “I thought she wanted the ball and was at the right place at the right time. She had the right look in her eyes, and she was the right leader for the team.”
That’s when Porter took over.
The senior guard committed an unforced turnover, her fourth of the game, when she lost the basketball out of bounds on the left wing. Ole Miss (12-7, 2-4) capitalized as Kenyotta Jenkins’ layup off a high-low pass from Nikki Byrd (12 points, 14 rebounds) cut the deficit to 43-42 with 4:53 to go.
Porter, who is 5-foot-6, responded with a reverse layup that took her under the basket to protect her from the 6-4 Byrd. Rector rebounded a miss on the other end to help set Porter up for a three-point play on a layup and a foul by Valencia McFarland (14 points, three assists) that kicked the lead to 48-42 with 3:44 left.
Porter finished with nine points, but she had six rebounds, three assists, and two steals in a typical stat-stuffer line in 29 minutes.
“I am going to make mistakes throughout the game, so I try not to let that get to me,” Porter said. “I just try to bounce back from my mistakes. No. 3 (McFarland) hit a shot on me, so I was like I am going to come back down and make one on her. I felt like I wasn’t going to let my team down because I let them down on the defensive end. I just tried to get the offense going, and two more points led to four more points and an and-one and five points and we were back up again.”
Sickness limited Porter to two points in 24 minutes in a 53-48 loss to LSU on Jan. 5 in Starkville. MSU had chances to win that game down the stretch, only to watch as LSU used a 14-2 run to close the game to steal the victory. On Wednesday, Porter said MSU still feels it can make the NCAA tournament, and she believes its latest victory shows it has matured since the loss to LSU.
“We played better team defense and we’re getting better as a team,” Porter said. “We just continue to work hard in practice. Every day is a learning process. Over the past week or so, I believe we have gotten better, and (that we will) continue to get better every day as long as we work hard in practice.”
MSU backed up the efforts of Johnson and Porter by clamping down after Ole Miss cut its lead to one point. The Rebels went 1 of 11 from the field in the final four-plus minutes and shot just 26.6 percent (17 of 64) as the Lady Bulldogs allowed their fewest points in a conference game this season.
Fanning-Otis credited her team for fighting through lapses rebounding the basketball and on defense in which it allowed McFarland, who was 4 of 22 from the field, to get several open 3-pointers that sparked Ole Miss.
“You’re going to have things that don’t go right, and it is the team that plays through mistakes the quickest and most focused because every team is going to make mistakes and every team is going to miss shots,” said Fanning-Otis, whose team has won four straight in the series, and six of the past seven. “It is how you respond to adversity that defines you. That is what we’re trying to get tougher with as a team and more focused with.”
MSU will play host to Auburn at 2 p.m. Sunday, while Ole Miss will play host to Georgia at 2 p.m. Sunday (CSS).
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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