Sharon Fanning-Otis is waiting for the Mississippi State women’s basketball team to take the next step.
The veteran coach sees her team making progress, but she also knows time is running out.
With five games remaining in the regular season, MSU (13-11, 3-8 Southeastern Conference) has little room for error as it prepares to play host to the University of Mississippi at 2:30 p.m. today (SportSouth) at Humphrey Coliseum.
MSU has lost five games in a row to put its postseason hopes in jeopardy. At the beginning of the season, the Lady Bulldogs talked of wanting to return to the NCAA tournament after finishing 13-17 last year. But with remaining games against the No. 11 University of Tennessee (Thursday in Starkville), Arkansas and Kentucky (teams MSU lost to earlier this season), and at Florida, MSU could be hard-pressed to have a winning record entering the SEC tournament next month in Nashville, Tenn. A winning record would at least give MSU breathing room if it loses its first game in SEC tournament and misses out on an opportunity to earn the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
MSU will try to erase the memory of another close loss, a 53-49 setback to LSU in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday. The Lady Bulldogs outrebounded the Tigers 31-30, the second time they have won that category in a SEC game this season, and nearly won the turnover battle, committing 16 to 15 for LSU.
But MSU shot just 36 percent (18 of 50) from the field, including 29.2 percent in the second half. Leading scorer Diamber Johnson led MSU with 15 points, but she was just 4 of 14 from the field. Junior guard Darriel Gaynor scored a season-high nine points to snap a streak of nine games in which she didn’t score.
Fanning-Otis said MSU will need more contributions like the one Gaynor delivered against LSU if it is going to give itself a chance to improve its résumé for the postseason.
“We are putting ourselves in position to win,” Fanning-Otis said. “Diamber had a great shot right in the heart of their defense (late in the second half with the game still in the balance) and we didn’t make a couple of those shots. That is the next step. We had a couple of possessions we just needed to take care of the ball better, but, for the most part, we played hard enough and together enough to win. We are bringing the two ends closer together. We can’t give up. We have to be persistent and stay after it.”
Fanning-Otis feels a victory in a close game will give her players added confident she thinks could propel them to a strong finish. But she said she doesn’t want her players to get caught up in wondering what if or what could have happened. Instead, she wants them to learn lessons from previous games and do a better job communicating and reading each other to avoid similar mistakes.
If that happens, Fanning-Otis likes her team’s chances.
“We have five games left before the tournament and we have an opportunity to continue to get better,” Fanning-Otis said. “I see the freshmen listening and learning. … There are a lot of times when someone is stepping up who has not done it before, and we’re trying to get enough experience as we go along.”
That’s why Fanning-Otis points to Gaynor’s performance against LSU as a potential positive. She said Gaynor has been working hard before and after practice and that “success breeds success. She hopes Gaynor’s 14-minute effort will push others on the team to raise their levels and not fall victim to lulls after mistakes or bad plays.
“Hopefully they will see that the hard work pays off and that they put the time into their games and that that helps give them the confidence they need to knock down those shots when it is their opportunity,” Fanning-Otis said.
Ole Miss (12-13, 2-10 SEC) is coming off a 52-47 setback to the University of Alabama on Thursday. The win was Alabama’s first in the SEC this season.
Valencia McFarland scored 12 points Thursday to raise her team-best scoring average to 13.2 points per game.
Nikki Byrd, who has averaged 12.6 points and 9.1 rebounds this season, played six minutes against the Crimson Tide after missing the team’s previous two games.
NOTE: MSU will honor Johnson before about 10 minutes before the start of the game for becoming the 19th player in program history to eclipse 1,000 career points. … Fans are encouraged to wear pink to the contest, as MSU will host its annual Think Pink Game presented by OCH.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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