STARKVILLE
The naysayers are still out there.
Back-to-back trips to the national title games have done little to dissuade everyone from buying into the fact the Mississippi State women’s basketball program is here to stay.
It would be easy to consider the 2018-19 season as a break in the run from the program’s all-time winningest class and back-to-back appearances in the national championship game to coach Vic Schaefer’s best recruiting class in his seven seasons in Starkville. The class further stretched MSU’s sphere of influence into Tennessee, Michigan, Washington, D.C., and Louisiana with the signing of Jayla Hemingway, Esmery Martinez, Rickea Jackson, Aliyah Matharu, and JaMya Mingo-Young. The Class of 2019 comes on the heels of MSU signing Jessika Carter and Xaria Wiggins, who were among the best players from the states of Georgia and Virginia, respectively.
Factor in MSU has been able to sprinkle international flavor into the mix with players like Chinwe Okorie and Chloe Bibby and attract transfers like Roshunda Johnson, Jordan Danberry, Anriel Howard, Andra Espinoza-Hunter, and Promise Taylor and it’s easy to see how MSU (5-0) again is locked in at No. 6 in The Associated Press and USA Today polls.
But things figure to get tougher for the Bulldogs.
Following a game against Jackson State at 2 p.m. Saturday at Humphrey Coliseum, MSU will go on the road to take on Little Rock at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in Little Rock, Arkansas. From there, games at No. 10 Texas, against No. 22 Marquette, at Southern Mississippi, at No. 3 Oregon, and at Washington will help set the stage for the beginning of the Southeastern Conference slate.
Will the Bulldogs be able to answer those challenges? Will their offense be able to come close to matching their high-scoring exploits in the first five games? Will the Bulldogs inch closer to playing the kind of defense that makes a leader with the nickname “Secretary of Defense” happy?
Schaefer hears the whispers. He heard them when he first decided to leave a job as associate head coach at Texas A&M to take over MSU. He heard them again after MSU lost by 60 points to Connecticut in the Sweet 16. A year later, MSU beat UConn to advance to its first national title game.
Schaefer said the mission now is to coach better and to teach better for three seconds more — the time it took Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale to drain a game-winning 3-pointer from the wing last season — to help his team take one more step to win a national championship.
Last season, MSU made history in going 16-0 to win the SEC regular-season title. That run was part of a program-record 37-win season that shattered scoring records thanks to the scoring talents of Victoria Vivians, Johnson, Blair Schaefer, and Morgan William. This year’s team wasn’t expected to be able to score as easily as that group. The Bulldogs figured to rely on 6-foot-7 senior center Teaira McCowan inside, but Howard, a graduate transfer, and Espinoza-Hunter, who earned immediate eligibility from the NCAA, have stepped right in and provided leadership, rebounding, and scoring. Bibby is blossoming as a consistent shooter, while Jazzmun Holmes has grabbed the reins at point guard and is directing the offense with deadly efficiency. Danberry, too, looks even more comfortable and is attacking the rim with determination.
Still, Schaefer said the Bulldogs have work to do. Their improvement has nothing to do with the doubts of the naysayers.
“All of the naysayers are out there,” Schaefer said. “I feel them on the back of my neck going, ‘OK, let’s see how they do in December.’ That’s my message to my team. I think we’re playing really well. We’re sharing the ball, we’re making shots, we’re executing, we’re finding the open play, but the naysayers are out there going,’OK, let’s see what December looks like.’ That’s my challenge to them is you know what, let’s work so that we can answer that in December.”
The maturation is going to come. You need only look back at how players like Vivians have improved. Schaefer’s schedules always have provided great tests to determine the Bulldogs’ progress. This year’s team will face several tests against the right type of opponents to provide a sense of where MSU is and what it has to work on to reach its goal.
For a coach who has been seconds from that ultimate prize, there is no doubt the 2018-19 Bulldogs will be ready for those challenges — and primed to prove the naysayers wrong.
Adam Minichino is sports editor of The Dispatch. You can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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