OXFORD
Rivalries are filled with perfunctory hand shakes and obligatory remarks that praise the opponent at the beginning of post-game news conferences.
The hand shakes between coaches usually are the shortest and the comments typically have the most bubbling in between the lines when coaches are trying to establish dominance early in their tenures.
It’s far too early to use the word dominance in the fledgling stages of the latest chapter of the Mississippi State-Ole Miss women’s basketball rivalry. But suffice it to say this rivalry is going to heat up in the next few years. That only can be a great thing for basketball fans in the state of Mississippi, the region, and the Southeastern Conference.
Morgan William’s 16-foot jump shot with three seconds remaining Thursday night lifted No. 18 MSU to a 64-62 victory before an energized crowd of 3,383 at Tad Smith Coliseum. The meeting was the last between the teams at “The Tad Pad.” Next season, Ole Miss will open a new basketball arena, The Pavilion at Ole Miss, which should add to the allure of the rivalry.
When you’re embroiled in a rivalry like this one, though, it really doesn’t matter where you play. Players are going to be amped, fans are going to be charged, and coaches are going to have an extra pep in their step. In the Magnolia State, those things carry even more weight when it pertains to all matters MSU vs. Ole Miss. Some aren’t even willing to call the school by its proper name, or even venture to the city of Oxford or Starkville for fear something might rub off on them.
Hyperbole like that only fuels the anticipation for the next meeting. If the last game was any indication, fans should get accustomed to seeing outcomes go down to the wire. After all, William’s shot, which featured a nifty between-the-legs dribble to create separation from freshman guard A’Queen Hayes, prevented the teams from going to overtime for the third-straight meeting. Last season, coach Matt Insell’s first in Ole Miss, each team won on its home court.
This season, things figured to start to heat up a little bit with MSU picked eighth in the SEC preseason coaches poll in Schaefer’s third season as head coach at the school. Ole Miss was picked 14th. That didn’t sit well with Insell, a former assistant coach with Matthew Mitchell and the Kentucky women’s team. Insell said in the preseason people didn’t know his team very well because if they did they surely wouldn’t have picked it last in the 14-team league.
Insell’s confidence in his team has been well deserved nearly halfway through the 16-game SEC season. With Hayes, classmate Shandricka Sessom, and sophomore transfer Erika Sisk, the future is bright for the Rebels. Insell has Ole Miss (14-6, 4-3 SEC) playing a hard-nosed style of basketball that relies on movement and quickness. The Rebels didn’t get to showcase their ability to create havoc on defense Thursday as much as Insell would have liked, but he should feel good about the direction his program his going.
“There was not a player in (the locker room after the game Thursday) that wasn’t crying,” Insell said. “You have a team that expects to win.
“We’re 4-3 going into a break. I don’t think anybody in this room thought we would be 4-3 going into this break. If you do say you thought we were going to 4-3, I would call you a liar. We have come a long way. We have a lot of ball to be played. We are going to continue to grind it out.”
But Insell won’t be satisfied that his team already has eclipsed its win total (12) from last season and that it is one victory away from guaranteeing it will finish the regular season with a winning record for the first time. The Rebels will try to finish with their first winning record since the 2009-10 season. With senior forward Tia Faleru, the only player in the SEC averaging a double-double, Insell knows this would be a great season to take a big step forward and get his program into the postseason. To accomplish that goal, he and his players will have to rebound from a tough loss that saw them rally from an eight-point deficit in the second half only to fall victim to a freshman’s dagger.
“That kid made an unbelievable shot. It was a great shot,” Insell said. “We contested it. We had a hand up. She made a great shot. All the credit to her.”
If Ole Miss continues its upward climb, Insell won’t have to keep “begging” fans or his new-found fraternity brothers — including the ones he met earlier this week trying to drum up support for the game — to come to his team’s games. Bigger home crowds can help give Ole Miss a home-court advantage like the one MSU is enjoying this season. MSU is coming off its first back-to-back crowds of 4,500 or more at Humphrey Coliseum. That support has MSU (20-2, 5-2) up to sixth in the SEC in average attendance (3,242). That figure is nearly 1,000 more than MSU averaged last season (2,321). If MSU hits its average Thursday against Vanderbilt in its 15th home game, it will eclipse its total attendance of 48,733 for 21 games last season.
Just like the fans at Ole Miss, the fans at MSU are enjoying a team that delivers excitement. With freshman Victoria Vivians and sophomore Dominique Dillingham leading two nationally ranked recruiting classes, Schaefer has engineered a turnaround that has seen MSU win 13 games in his first season and 22 (quarterfinals of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament) in his second. This season, national pundits like Charlie Creme have projected that MSU could be as high as a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament and earn a chance to play host to the first and second round of the NCAA tournament.
That would be an incredible accomplishment for a team that took its first steps to learning how to win last season thanks to victories against Tulane, Southern Mississippi, and Auburn in the WNIT. That momentum continued into this season despite injuries that limited the availability and effectiveness of seniors Martha Alwal, Savannah Carter, and Kendra Grant. All three are back, and while Grant likely is the closest one to or at 100 percent health, their return has stabilized a team that has the potential to break program marks for wins in a season (24) and in the SEC (10). To do that, MSU will have to navigate a second half of the league schedule that will feature four games against ranked, including three on the road.
Knowing Schaefer, though, that won’t faze him or his players because they will be the underdog and won’t have anything to lose.
It’s a different story when you talk MSU-Ole Miss. The Bulldogs’ victory Thursday lifted Schaefer’s record to 3-2 against the Rebels. For a coach as competitive as Schaefer, that isn’t good enough.
It also isn’t good enough for Insell, who said Thursday he hopes Ole Miss Athletic Director Ross Bjork keeps him at the school for a long time. He said he could see himself being the Rebels’ coach for the rest of his life. If that is the case, that could mean a lot of matchups against Schaefer and the Bulldogs. It also means there likely won’t be a lot of long hand shakes, but in rivalries that is fine because that usually means one person isn’t happy with the outcome of the latest game and will do everything they can to change it.
“As long as Vic Schaefer is there and I am here it is going to be a battle,” Insell said. “He and I are very competitive. Before I got the Ole Miss job, we used to talk a lot. We don’t talk anymore. We are not very good friends anymore because we are competitive and we want to win and we want to own each other.
“This rivalry is going to be one of the better ones in the country. I think people can see that.”
Adam Minichino is sports editor of The Dispatch. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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