Martha Alwal, Darriel Gaynor, Kendra Grant, and Jerica James were downright giddy Thursday evening.
When you have just helped engineer your team’s best victory of the season, you have every to smile and celebrate.
The question for the Mississippi State University women’s basketball players today, though, as its prepares for its regular-season finale at 2 p.m. against Auburn University is simple: Are you done?
That’s the question MSU coach Vic Schaefer put to his team Friday and again as its prepared for a key game against Auburn (15-13, 4-11 Southeastern Conference. MSU (13-15) is tied with the University of Missouri and the University of Arkansas at 5-10 in the league. MSU holds the tiebreaker on both teams thanks to victories earlier in the season. A victory today would guarantee MSU the No. 9 seed in the SEC tournament, which starts later this week. A loss would leave the Bulldogs’ fate to be determined.
“Are you done, or are you ready to take the next step,or do we need to wait until next year to take the next step?” Schaefer said is what he asked his team Friday. “You just played a team that is No. 11 in the country and you dominated them defensively and you executed at a very high level defensively, now can you build on that and go on the road again like we did at Missouri and go dominate Auburn in the same fashion. I don’t know. I haven’t seen them do it yet, but we haven’t been in this position.”
Schaefer said his players told him they were ready, but he acknowledges “talking the talk and walking the walk” are two different things. He said he would love for his team to take care of business and not leave things up to Alabama, which plays host to Missouri, or the University of Mississippi, which plays at Arkansas. If MSU doesn’t beat Auburn, it risks falling behind Missouri and Arkansas and losing a tiebreaker to Auburn, which would drop it all the way to 12th in the league standings and force it into the play-in game between the No. 12 and No. 13 teams in the SEC standings. The No. 12 vs. No. 13 game will be at 5 p.m. Wednesday at The Arena at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Ga. The No. 8 vs. No. 9 game will be at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Ole Miss, which is tied with Alabama at 2-13 in the league, has self imposed a postseason ban on the program and is ineligible for the SEC tournament.
Schaefer praised his team for its effort and defensive intensity Thursday in a 50-38 victory against No. 11 University of Georgia at Humphrey Coliseum. The victory was the team’s first against a ranked opponent since a win against No. 8 Ohio State University in the first round of the 2010 NCAA tournament. The victory pushed the Bulldogs to the Sweet 16 for the first time in the program’s history.
Since then, MSU had battled through 13- and 14-win seasons and has undergone a coaching change. Schaefer’s goal coming in was to instill a toughness, particularly on defense, in his players. But with a team that has only one senior — Gaynor — and two returning players with significant playing experience — Alwal and Grant — Schaefer said he often hasn’t known how his team will perform game to game and practice to practice. In fact, he said Saturday the team’s practice the day before the Georgia game was one of its worst of the season. He said the consistency he is striving for comes with experience, and he believes that will come with time. Schaefer hopes that time will come today.
“I think our kids know they are not out of the postseason picture, so when you tell them that it really piques their interest (and makes them ask), ‘What do we have to do and how do we get there,’ which is what you want,” Schaefer said.
Schaefer feels confident his team will respond today. He said he would be “surprised” if MSU “lays an egg” today.
“I think they are ready to try to do more,” Schaefer said. “The bottom line for us is we’re not going to outscore anybody. We have to keep the score in the 40s and get a decent win. That has nothing to do with your skill set. That has everything to do with your heart and your commitment level to going out and guarding somebody and shutting them down. We’re capable of doing that every night. I will be anxious to see if we come out against Auburn with that mentality and that toughness like we did against Alabama and Georgia.
“I think they will come out highly charged, highly competitive. I think Auburn is, too, because it is Senior Day, they will have a good crowd, and all of that. As long as we don’t let them get off on us like South Carolina did on a 12-0 run (at the start of the game) thanks to layup after layup after layup after turnover after turnover after turnover and we can find a way to score, I think we will be fine.”
Auburn is seventh in the SEC in scoring defense (61 points per game) and 11th in scoring (65.4 ppg.). MSU is eighth in scoring defense (61.9) and last in the league in scoring (55.5).
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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