“The Bulldogs are the most upwardly mobile team in the SEC. After three straight losing seasons, Vic Schaefer’s rebuilding job produced a school-record 27 wins. Now Mississippi State is in position to challenge at the top of the conference. Sophomore Victoria Vivians is one of the most exciting young scorers in the country and leads a deep and versatile roster.”
— Charlie Creme’s analysis of Mississippi State in his Southeastern Conference preview posted last week on ESPN.com
STARKVILLE
Vic Schaefer doesn’t always agree with Charlie Creme.
That’s not a bad thing, though, because college coaches usually have a spin on things they want their players to follow. Last season, the Mississippi State women’s basketball coach questioned Creme’s valuation of the Southeastern Conference and his seeding for the Bulldogs in his NCAA tournament Bracketology.
This season, Schaefer and Creme might be as close as they ever will be when it comes to their opinions of MSU’s potential for the 2015-16 season. When your team is ranked No. 11 in The Associated Press poll, No. 12 in ESPN’s rankings, and No. 13 in the USA Today poll, which is voted on by the coaches, it’s easy to find agreement, even if it is with a member of the national media.
Schaefer and the Bulldogs aren’t shying away from the attention. In fact, they’re welcoming it. With a schedule that features non-conference games against ranked opponents like Texas and South Florida, MSU will be tested before it begins SEC play. Games against No. 2 South Carolina and No. 4 Tennessee at Humphrey Coliseum will push the excitement surrounding the program to all-time heights.
MSU’s first step on what could be another history-making season will come at 7 p.m. Tuesday when it plays host to Mississippi College in an exhibition game at the Hump. The matchup will be the team’s final tuneup for its season opener against Samford at 5:15 p.m. Friday.
So are we to believe Creme’s assessment of MSU and to think that the Bulldogs could challenge the Gamecocks and the Lady Volunteers?
Yes. That’s easy. If MSU remains at the same place it was last season and you factor in the contributions from newcomers Zion Campbell, Jazzmun Holmes, Teaira McCowan, and Jazmine Spears, it has a strong chance to challenge the mark it set last season with a program-best 27 wins.
But MSU is shooting even higher because the Bulldogs have improved up and down the lineup. Leading scorer Victoria Vivians looks to be in better shape and has worked to become an even better scorer. Juniors Dominique Dillingham and Breanna Richardson have improved their shooting and ballhandling, while sophomores Kayla Nevitt and LaKaris Salter have shown that they, too, worked hard in the offseason and are ready to take on bigger roles.
Playing a bigger role is a position sophomore Morgan William will be in. A year ago, William served as understudy to senior Jerica James, watching on the bench at the start of games and coming in to provide a spark. This season, William will be the starter and will be counted on to be a floor general and captain.
The improvement each of those players has made is just a sample. You could argue MSU could go as deep as 14 players. The only player who won’t get a chance to contribute in games is junior Roshunda Johnson, who will have to sit out this season due to NCAA transfer rules.
Better shooting, ballhandling, rebounding, and depth figure to give MSU a chance to shatter the mark it set last season for overall wins and victories in the SEC (11). The key will be the Bulldogs’ mind-set. The days of sneaking up on anyone are gone. They have been replaced by a bull’s eye that will be on the team’s back for every game. It doesn’t matter if a team is ranked or unranked, or in the top 100 of the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) or if it has a RPI of 150-200. Every team knows a victory against MSU will be a resume-builder.
Will that be too much to handle? It won’t be if MSU develops a killer instinct.
Too many times last season, players smiled or patted their chests as if to say ‘My bad” after they committed mistakes. Granted, no one is perfect and coaches want their players to be relaxed and to have fun when they’re playing, but MSU needs to develop an assassin’s precision. It needs to play with the confidence that it is the nation’s No. 11 team and that is should beat teams by 30 and 40 points.
Schaefer has said many times in the past few years that he loves his players. He also has said that the players he has recruited are some of the nicest young women he has had the pleasure of coaching. But Schaefer has said before — and he reiterated last week at the team’s annual media day — that the time for being a well-mannered young lady ends when his players step on the court.
That’s why it was revealing to hear Schaefer’s respond to someone playing devil’s advocate who wondered if MSU is too nice, and if that mentality would prevent the program from taking the next step this season?
“For two hours we have to be monsters,” Schaefer said. “We have a job to do and we have to do it to the best of our ability.”
To illustrate his point, Schaefer talked about the past two seasons — in which MSU has won 22 and 27 games — and how he would go into the locker room at halftime “madder than a wet hen” that his team was leading an opponent by 20 points, not 40. He mentioned the gold standard in women’s basketball — Connecticut — as an example of a team that goes out with ruthless efficiency and does what it is supposed to. If that means beating a team by 50, that’s what it does. It doesn’t make any excuses. It doesn’t feel self conscious because it strives for excellence and, nearly every time out, it usually reaches that goal.
Schaefer wants MSU to reach for the same bar. He isn’t saying the Bulldogs are going to challenge the Huskies for the national title this season, but he has been around long enough to know this team has enough pieces that it could be alive deep into March and, possibly, in April. For it to survive that long, Schaefer knows the Bulldogs will have to develop a swagger that dares anyone to beat them and gives them the confidence and poise to respond to any challenge.
If MSU plays with that mind-set, look out because Humphrey Coliseum is going to be rockin’.
“We have been that team that the team we’re supposed to beat by 60 we beat them by 25,” Schaefer said. “I want to be the team that if there is somebody on our schedule that we’re supposed to beat by 20, we beat them by 20, not by five. If there is somebody on our schedule we’re supposed to beat by 30, we beat them by 30, not by 15.
“I think that’s where we are. We have tremendous kids. They are wonderful young ladies. They are sweet as can be, but the bottom line is when the lights come on, we have to get a little bit of an edge to us, and play with a little bit of an edge.”
Adam Minichino is sports editor of The Dispatch. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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