The message remains the same for Sharon Fanning-Otis: Her Mississippi State University women’s basketball team needs to get tougher.
As MSU (13-8, 3-5 Southeastern Conference) enters the month of February, it is running out of time if it wants to realize its goal to return to the NCAA tournament. At this time last season, MSU started to round into shape and played its best basketball of the campaign, going 5-5 in the final two months.
The 13-17 finish in 2010-11 left the Lady Bulldogs wanting more and hoping they could build on the momentum from a victory against Auburn University in the first round of the SEC tournament.
But MSU hasn’t been able to find its rhythm this season and enters its game at the No. 21 University of Georgia (16-6, 5-4) on a two-game losing skid. At 3-5 in the SEC, MSU is in a dangerous spot in the schedule with games remaining against nationally ranked Kentucky and Tennessee. It also has games left at LSU and Arkansas, teams it already has lost to this season in Starkville.
The good news is those teams will give MSU plenty of chances to improve its national profile, which is eighth in the SEC and was 112th in the NCAA’s RPI rankings through games Sunday. Ole Miss (171) and Alabama (172) are the only SEC teams ranked below MSU in the RPI rankings, which are used by the NCAA tournament selection committee to pick the at-large teams.
Fanning-Otis never has been one to lose herself in the minutiae of RPI and SOS (Strength of Schedule). Instead, the veteran coach is more concerned with things she can affect, especially the mind-set of her basketball team.
“I hope we’re going to get ready,” Fanning-Otis said. :We need to get tougher. We have got to respond. We have to get tougher and find ways to win ballgames. Hopefully, we will step up and win some ballgames.”
MSU is coming off a 51-35 loss to Arkansas and a 69-43 loss to South Carolina on Sunday. Senior point guard Diamber Johnson, whose mother had a heart attack last week, has scored only six points in the past two games on 2-of-21 shooting from the field. Prior to those two games, she was leading the SEC in scoring at 17.9 points per game.
Fanning-Otis stressed the Lady Bulldogs are trying to stay focused on the team part of things, like communication, intensity, and reading the game, but she also emphasized Johnson needs to play a bigger role if the Lady Bulldogs are going to be more competitive.
“Diamber just has to be on track for is in terms of work ethic and taking the ball at people,” Fanning-Otis said. “I don’t think we have stayed focused and played as hard as we can. We can’t play east-west and beat good teams.”
Fanning-Otis said similar things about her team last season before it gathered itself and improved in many of those areas down the stretch. This season, though, MSU continues to be plagued by a number of factors — turnovers, rebounding, shooting percentage — that are limiting its opportunities to realize its potential. MSU is 11th in the SEC in scoring (59.7 ppg.), 10th in field goal percentage (37.4 percent), 10th in rebounding margin (+0.2), 12th in assists (217), and 11th in turnover margin (-0.3).
Fanning-Otis said one way to find a spark is to change rotations. She has tried to use more players in recent weeks in an attempt to find someone who can provide consistent production. With four freshmen often seeing key minutes, she realizes it will take time for some of those things to improve. Her hope is the Lady Bulldogs deliver the energy and enthusiasm the team needs the rest of the way to push it back into the SEC race.
“I am a teacher first, and it is my job to teach,” Fanning-Otis said. “I am trying to do my job and to figure out how to get to each of the players and to train them better. I don’t think in life anybody said it is going to be easy. Sometimes in the greatest challenge you find the most gratification when you get it right.
“I expect us to get better. I expect us to play harder. I feel like they are hearing and they are working. When we get against real athletic teams we have to stay more focused.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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