STARKVILLE — All the ingredients were there.
The Mississippi State women’s basketball team had its biggest crowd of the season at Humphrey Coliseum to watch one of the most storied programs in the history of the sport.
Tennessee added to MSU’s good fortune by committing 22 turnovers and missing a bushel’s worth of shots in the lane to give the Bulldogs and their fans hope that this might be the night they witnessed history.
MSU added to the feeling something momentous could happen by recovering from every punch Tennessee threw and coming back for more time and time again.
Everything pointed to history in the making.
Andraya Carter and the Lady Volunteers made sure there weren’t any firsts Thursday night.
Carter scored seven of her nine points in the second half, and Ariel Massengale and Bashaara Graves tied for team-high scoring honors with 13 points to lead No. 12 Tennessee to a 67-63 victory against MSU before a crowd of 3,169 at the Hump.
Isabelle Harrison added 10 points to help Tennessee (14-3, 3-2 Southeastern Conference) improve to 35-0 all-time against MSU. Tennessee defeated MSU 88-45 on Jan. 31, 2013, in Knoxville, Tenn. The 39-point improvement wasn’t lost on MSU second-year coach Vic Schaefer or his players, but it wasn’t cause for celebration, either.
“You’re looking at some disappointed Bulldogs,” Schaefer said. “I don’t think there is anybody that is satisfied with anything about the outcome. It doesn’t matter it was close. We came to play. We had a game plan. Our kids played and competed their absolute tails off all night long. I couldn’t be more proud of them from a competitive standpoint.”
In a near-miss like this one, there are always a few times when the underdog can look back and wonder what if. On this night, MSU showed tenacity for 40 minutes that Schaefer has been yearning to see. The Bulldogs overcame foul trouble in the first half to junior center Martha Alwal (10 points, nine rebounds) and freshman forward Breanna Richardson (eight points, seven rebounds). They also battled through a cold shooting evening by one of their hottest players, freshman guard Dominique Dillingham, who was 1 of 11 from the field and scored only three points.
Each time, though, MSU (14-4, 1-3) answered the call. It fell behind by as many as eight points twice in the second half only to climb back after each surge by Tennessee. MSU cut Tennessee’s lead to three points eight times. Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to hit one more basket or to make one more play or stop to tie the game or take the lead. That’s why Alwal sat to the left of Schaefer in the postgame press conference and looked as unhappy as she has been in her three seasons in Starkville.
“We have a poem, and it’s titled, ‘It’s Only One Possession,’ ” Schaefer said. “They’re all going to get that poem (today). In that poem, it talks about the game is only one possession. A game like this, if you’re going to beat a top-12 team, it’s only one possession. It’s one rebound you don’t get, it’s one free throw you don’t block out, it’s one rotation on dribble penetration, it’s one back door (you lose your player on to give up a layup). It’s all that. Everybody, we all can embrace that poem right now. If we all would have taken care of one possession, we might be sitting up here the victors rather than the team got beat.”
Tennessee denied MSU a chance to make a national statement by making 11 of its final 14 shots from the field to send the eighth-largest crowd in MSU women’s basketball history home unhappy. The sentiment of many of those fans matched the Bulldogs’ feelings in the postgame press conference.
“You could taste it. We were just that close,” MSU senior point guard Katia May said. “Like coach said, it is disappointing how close we were. It is a nasty taste. A very nasty taste.”
Junior Kendra Grant came off the bench to score a game-high 21 points. May added 14 points and six assists. Both players hit big shots in the second half, either with the shot clock winding down or with defenders in their face. But as well as MSU answered runs, it couldn’t stop them. Tennessee used a back cut for a layup twice in the final three minutes to score timely baskets. The first came by Cierra Burdick with 2 minutes, 36 seconds remaining to kick the Lady Volunteers’ lead back to 59-54. MSU responded thanks to a conventional three-point play by Grant with 1:49 to go.
Carter then delivered perhaps the biggest blow by converting a layup off a back cut to give Tennessee a 64-59 lead with 38.6 seconds to go. Richardson hit two free throws with 26.4 seconds left to cut the lead to 64-61, but Tennessee hit 3 of 4 free throws in the final 23.7 seconds to seal the deal.
“I am really upset,” Alwal said. “I don’t think we should have lost that game. I am disappointed in how we played. Free throws beat us and also transition. We would get excited about scoring and they would go down and score on us. We need to find our man and play better help defense.”
Tennessee hit 18 of 25 free throws (72 percent). MSU was 7 of 12 from the free throw line. The Lady Volunteers also shot 14 of 21 from the field (66.7 percent) in the second half. Tennessee’s 49-percent shooting effort for the game was the second-highest percentage against MSU this season.
“We know what we can do,” Grant said. “Like Martha said, this is a game we could have won. We could have beat them. Just knowing how close we can be and good we can be, it is just using that as motivation for the next games we have.”
Earlier in the half, Carter delivered another play-of-the-game moment when she drove the left wing, absorbed contact, and finished a layup with her left hand. She drained the free throw to give Tennessee a six-point lead. But Dillingham regrouped from being taken out of the game to hit her only shot of the game — a 3-pointer off an assist from May — to cut the deficit to 57-54. May added a floater in the lane that showed the Bulldogs’ attacking nature. MSU kept that mentality despite battling against a stretched out 1-2-2 zone defense that trapped in the corners. Tennessee used its height and its length to force eight of MSU’s 16 turnovers in the second half.
May, who was one point shy of her season-high scoring total, said the Bulldogs won’t forget what it felt like to be so close to making history. She hopes the team can learn from the loss and move forward.
“We competed. We did, but is that enough to just compete?” May said. “We lost by four, OK, but to win by four, that will be even better. We are just going to (Texas) A&M and do the same thing and come out with the win.”
As much as Schaefer has talked about seeing his team mature and grow up before his eyes, May’s question is more than a side note. Last season, MSU showed in a victory against then-No. 11 Georgia that it could play hard and get results. It followed that with two of its most disappointing efforts — losses to Auburn and Alabama (SEC tournament) — in two of the biggest games of the year.
A year later, MSU appears to be developing the consistent intensity it needs to climb the ladder in the SEC. Now it has to find a way to come together to make one more play and put itself in position to realize the fruits of its hard work.
“I am hoping this is who we are, that when the lights come on this is how we play every night,” Schaefer said. “It is certainly how we practice and how we are trying to teach them to be. We said it tonight, we’re not having to coach their heart now. We’re getting to coach their mind. If you’re having to coach somebody’s heart, you have the wrong people. Right now, we’re not having to coach their heart. They are in it to win it. They are doing everything they can possibly do.”
MSU will play at 2 p.m. Sunday at Texas A&M. The game will mark the return to College Station, Texas, for Schaefer, associate head coach Johnnie Harris, assistant coach Aqua Franklin, director of basketball operations Maryann Baker, and video coordinator Skylar Collins.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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