STARKVILLE — Teaira McCowan wasn’t thinking about a professional basketball career when she arrived at Mississippi State.
In fact, McCowan said in July 2015 she wasn’t even sure if she would be able to play Division I basketball because so many coaches told her she would have to go to junior college first.
Vic Schaefer and Johnnie Harris didn’t buy it.
“Coach Harris and coach Schaefer were like, ‘No, you don’t have to go to JUCO first,” McCowan said more than three years ago. “You can just come right on to DI. You just have to put in the extra hours.’ ”
McCowan has put in more than a few “extra” hours to become arguably the best post player in women’s college basketball. The 6-foot-7 from Brenham, Texas, has earned preseason first-team All-America honors from Street and Smith and second-team accolades from Athlon and Lindy’s. The recognition comes on the heels of a breakout junior season that saw McCowan set a program record for double-doubles and help MSU go 16-0 in the Southeastern Conference and win the program’s first regular-season title.
The accomplishments didn’t stop there, as MSU won a program-record 37 games and advanced to its second-straight national title game. McCowan played an integral role in that march, earning first-team All-SEC honors, first-team All-America honors from espnW, and third-team All-America honors from The Associated Press and the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA). She also was named the winner of the first Naismith Defensive Player of the Year.
This season, McCowan is expected to take on an even bigger role as she leads the team with senior guards Jazzmun Holmes and Jordan Danberry and graduate transfer Anriel Howard, a forward from Texas A&M.
On Thursday, McCowan will join Schaefer and Holmes in Birmingham, Alabama, for the annual SEC Media Days. The event is the official kickoff for the 2018-19 season, which begins at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2, with an exhibition game against Central Missouri at Humphrey Coliseum.
“They definitely put me in position to be successful,” McCowan said. “They stayed on me and tried to get me to buy into what they were saying.”
McCowan credits Harris for helping her learn how to control her aggressiveness. She said Harris, who coaches the Bulldogs’ post players, stayed on her, especially on days when she said she didn’t feel like she didn’t want to work. That mentality wasn’t OK with Harris, who saw the potential in McCowan and wanted to bring it out.
“She stays on me and tells me I have come too far to turn around and go back, and she tells me I am too good to go back to where I came from,” McCowan said.
McCowan said Harris said similar things to her when she was a freshman and a sophomore but that she “wasn’t really listening to what she was saying.” She said the proverbial light bulb finally went off prior to her junior year.
Harris stoked McCowan’s desire to be great by searching for a way to motivate her so she would be more consistently engaged. With the help of MSU assistant sports information director Brock Turnipseed, she challenged McCowan to break the program record of 20 double-doubles in a season. McCowan shattered that mark with 29 (39 for her career) by averaging 18.2 points and 13.9 rebounds and shooting 60.1 percent from the field.
McCowan said Harris hasn’t challenged her with a goal for the 2018-19 season, but she feels Harris or someone will find something for her to shoot for in an effort to make her final season as a Bulldog even more memorable.
McCowan figures to surpass LaToya Thomas’ all-time program mark of 48 double-doubles early in her senior year, so Harris likely will have to dig a little deeper for another statistic that will challenge McCowan.
“I think she is more serious,” Harris said in December 2017. “I think that is part of her maturation, and I think she is playing for something.”
Schaefer agrees. He said in September that the conversation about the 2018-19 Bulldogs will begin with McCowan but that it will include experienced players like Holmes, Danberry, and Howard.
McCowan said she hasn’t considered setting any tangible goals. Instead, she said she wants to be better than she was last season. She acknowledges that will be difficult, but she said she is going to try to be a better rebounder and to improve her efficiency and production.
The addition of Howard, who averaged 12.2 rebounds last season and became the first Texas A&M player with 1,000 or more rebounds (1,002), could make it tougher for McCowan to deliver better rebounding numbers, but don’t worry because she usually realizes a goal once she has it in her sights.
“I know we are both great rebounders, but if one us can get it I don’t really care as long as the other team isn’t getting the ball,” McCowan said.
In August, McCowan paced MSU in scoring (19 points per game) and rebounds (10.7 per game) in the team’s 3-0 tour of Italy. She shot 59 percent from the field, which is a number she and Schaefer want to be higher. McCowan’s continued offensive development likely will help determine how high she goes in the first round of the WNBA draft next spring.
Until then, McCowan is going to continue to work. Her plan is to be even more of a dominating presence.
“I will have to pick up where they lack,” McCowan said. “If one of my guards or another person gets beat off the bounce, I know I have to be in help. I can’t be focused on my person. If we’re not doing a great job of boxing out, I know I have to box my guy out or keep somebody on the other team from getting it.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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