STARKVILLE — In the hours after Mississippi State’s bid for a national championship ended with a 67-55 loss to South Carolina Sunday evening in Dallas, the skies opened up in Mississippi, an overnight deluge that dumped inches of rain across the state.
The weather seemed to match the emotions.
By 3 p.m. Monday, as the bus that carried the Mississippi State’s women’s basketball team from the Golden Triangle Regional Airport back to campus, the skies had cleared and the weather had brightened, along with the mood.
A crowd of about 250 fans formed a 100-foot long human tunnel, three to four deep, as the players, weary-eyed and loaded down with their carry-ons, moved through the gauntlet, pausing briefly along the way for a hug, a fist-bump or a quick selfie.
The MSU cheerleaders were there and quite a few fans brought their cowbells. Some fashioned signs to welcome the Bulldogs home. The players, accommodating as always, refused no requests and smiled for photos.
But the homecoming was not quite the spirited affair that marked the team’s departure for Dallas six days earlier. The parking lot had emptied within a half-hour, the players returning to the relative anonymity of college students with classes to attend this morning, the fans to their homes or workplaces.
One got the feeling that players and fans alike were eager to get “back to normal” after the Bulldogs’ emotional, three-week march through the NCAA Women’s Tournament that began with wins over Troy and DePaul at home, moved to Oklahoma City, where MSU beat Washington and Baylor before heading for Dallas for what arguably was the most tumultuous 48 hours in MSU sports history.
On Friday, Mississippi State stunned four-time defending champion Connecticut on Morgan William’s last-second buzzer-beater in overtime, breaking the Huskies’ unprecedented 111-game winning streak. Friday’s euphoria turned to Sunday’s anguish. MSU lost its bid for the school’s first team championship with a disappointing 12-point loss to its nemesis — the Gamecocks beat MSU in all three meetings this year and have won 11 straight against the Bulldogs.
“It was pretty crazy,” guard Dominique Dillingham admitted. “Very emotional. We were really motivated to go back and play them again after what happened last year (UConn destroyed MSU, 98-38 in the tournament). It was really incredible to get that win against them. Then, to lose to South Carolina … again. That was tough.”
The fans seemed inclined to look on the bright side.
“I just hope they’re not too disappointed,” said retired MUW professor Martha Wells. “They don’t have any reason to be disappointed. I think the win against UConn was more important than winning the whole thing. I think we probably got more publicity from that, in the long run.
“In five years, everybody will remember Morgan’s shot,” she added.
Looking ahead
Dillingham seemed eager to move on to the next chapter of her life, although she confessed she is not entirely sure what that will be.
She’s a kinesiology major, but she’s thinking about going to nursing school. She said she may also pursue pro basketball or even return to MSU to work as a graduate assistant.
“The main focus is graduation on May 5,” she said. “After that, I’ll probably go home (to Spring, Texas) for a while and sort out everything.”
For Wells, saying goodbye to Dillingham, along with the other three departing seniors — Chinwe Okorie, Breanna Richardson and Ketara Chapel — will be bittersweet.
Wells, who coached women’s gymnastics and volleyball while teaching the W’s heath and kinesiology department, said it was the close bond of those four players that drew her.
“I’ve been to every home game since this class came in,” said Wells, who taught at MUW from 1964 until she retired in 1996. “Before then, I’d been to a few games here and there. But there was something about them. I just loved the way this team worked together, the camaraderie you have to have to really produce a team. I think that was very special and it was very obvious from the beginning. It built and evolved over these four years to something even greater, more profound.”
Holly Schaefer, wife of head coach Vic Schaefer, had no reservations about the team’s success, even though it ended one win short of the ultimate goal.
“Proud,” she said. “That’s what I’m feeling. We’ve been here five years. On Sunday, we were one of two teams still standing. It’s pretty incredible how far these kids have come.”
Wells, like the others who gathered to greet the team, isn’t spending a lot of time wondering “what if?”.
“Hey, we beat the odds this year,” she said, “So who’s to say we can’t do it again, right?”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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