STARKVILLE — The waiting game continues for the Mississippi State women’s basketball team.
MSU coach Vic Schaefer doesn’t mind that the Bulldogs will have to wait until Monday to find out where they will lay their first game in the NCAA tournament. That’s because MSU’s fourth-year head coach and his coaching staff have transformed a program that was 13-17 in their first season and hoping to get into the tournament into one that has its sights focused on staying alive in March Madness a little longer.
MSU (26-7) has that confidence thanks to a 2-1 showing last weekend at the Southeastern Conference tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, that saw it advance to the tournament’s title game for the second time in the program’s history. A 66-52 loss to No. 3 and top-seeded South Carolina on Sunday didn’t diminish the positives Schaefer saw in victories against Vanderbilt and Tennessee that he believed improved his team’s resume for NCAA tournament consideration.
The only question left to be answered Monday night is whether MSU will be one of the top 16 seeds in the 64-team field and if it will get a chance to play host to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament for the first time. Schaefer stated his case for his team after the loss to South Carolina. He did it again Wednesday armed with the confidence that his team tied Texas A&M for second in the SEC in the regular season and that it reached the championship game of the tournament for the nation’s No. 2 Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) conference. He believes the fact that the SEC figures to get a record nine teams into the NCAA tournament also will help his team’s cause.
“I don’t think we have to do anything,” Schaefer said. “At the end of the day you’re trying to seed the top 16 teams in the country. How can you say we aren’t one of the top 16 teams in the country? To me, that’s it in a nutshell. I think we are one of the top 16 teams in the country. We’re 9-3 in our last 12 with no bad losses outside the top 50 (in the RPI). We’re playing as well as anyone in our league at the right time of the year. We finished second in the No. 2 RPI conference in the country and played for the title in our conference tournament. We are 6-2 away from home down the stretch. I think it’s pretty obvious we are one of the top 16 teams in the country.”
The NCAA tournament selection committee likely will examine the resumes of MSU, Florida State, and Syracuse to determine the final team in its top 16. DePaul figured to be in that group, but it lost to Creighton in the semifinals of the Big East Conference tournament, so it likely will be a No. 5 seed. According to the figures through Wednesday, the NCAA has Syracuse (13) ahead of FSU (15) and MSU (21) in its latest RPI projection. According to RealTimeRPI.com figures updated today, Syracuse has a RPI of 13 and a Strength of Schedule (SOS) of 16, while FSU had a RPI of 15 and a SOS of 26 and MSU had a RPI of 24 and a SOS of 64.
Schaefer believes his team shouldn’t be penalized for a non-conference schedule that includes six victories against teams with RPIs of 256 or higher. He feels how a team is playing in January, February, and March is a far better barometer of a team’s true identity than games played in November and December, when some teams are still figuring things out.
Schaefer expressed confidence that the NCAA tournament selection committee will do its homework and knows that MSU tried to schedule games against several teams from Power 5 conference that decided not to play. He said that, too, should be factored into the equation if people are going to criticize the strength of his team’s non-conference schedule.
Schaefer also argued the Bulldogs don’t have any losses to teams that it should have defeated. MSU lost at Texas, at Missouri, at Georgia, twice to South Carolina, at Texas A&M, and to Kentucky. The first loss to South Carolina in Starkville and the losses to Texas, Georgia, and Texas A&M were by six points or less. The 23-point loss to Kentucky in Starkville is the only game that might be considered a blemish on MSU’s resume, but Schaefer said the final margin of that game could have been closer if he opted to play leading scorer Victoria Vivians and point guard Morgan William more minutes.
Unfortunately, the NCAA tournament selection committee won’t consider attendance as a factor in deciding which teams will be the top 16 seeds. Through Wednesday, MSU is 16th in average attendance (5.044), according to the NCAA. That includes a state of Mississippi record crowd of 10,626 for the game against South Carolina on Jan. 24. FSU is ranked 33rd (average of 3,141) and Syracuse is 163rd (752).
“It would be unbelievable (if MSU had a chance to play host to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament),” Schaefer said. “I think our game deserves that, and it would be great if we could provide that opportunity here in the Hump. The other teams would enjoy it, embrace it and appreciate it because there’s not a lot of places like this across the country. All we have tried to do here is create a great environment for women’s basketball.”
After giving his team Monday and Tuesday off, Schaefer said the Bulldogs would practice the rest of the week and then see how everyone looks. He said the Bulldogs will use the time between games to rest and to recover from a variety of aches and pains and bumps and bruises. He hopes the team will learn a lesson from its 40-minute effort against Tennessee and bring that level of performance the rest of the season.
“I think as we move forward it will be more common every time,” Schaefer said. “That is our goal every night out. But just like I can’t give my best pre-game speech every time, they are young kids at times. It is hard to get that peak performance. Look at (the NBA’s) Golden State (Warriors, who have a league-best 57-6 record through games played Wednesday). At some point you are going to have one of those nights, and ours was against Kentucky. I think as we mature and get older you are going to see that more and more from our kids, and that’s the piece that is exciting because we are so young and so inexperienced in certain spots. I just think the best is yet to come.”
That’s part of the reason Schaefer is anxious to get back to the court and see his team take the next step. He hopes the lessons learned from last season, when MSU was a No. 5 seed and lost to No. 4 seed Duke in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Durham, North Carolina, come together with the ones his team has had this season in moving one step away from matching the program record for wins it set a year ago.
“I will tell that sophomore class, hey, you blink now and half of your career is over,” Schaefer said. “You have already played two seasons here and it just seems like yesterday that they got here. You guys need to embrace and cherish the moment we have because success is fleeting and remember what it has taken to get here, and don’t ever think there is any other way to get here because there is not. We have to keep doing what we’re doing — hard work, dedication, commitment — all of those things go into that game (against Tennessee) and preparing you for that game.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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