South Detroit is a long way from Starkville.
But the cell phones that lit up Humphrey Coliseum on Sunday afternoon showed that all it takes is one classic song to bridge more than 800 miles.
By now, nearly everyone who follows Mississippi State sports has come to know the song “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” by the band Journey as the school’s song. The football team made it famous on its run to No. 1 in the nation and its first 10-win regular season in school history.
These days, the MSU women’s basketball team is taking a piece from coach Dan Mullen’s team and making that song its own. Instead of a bowl game, MSU hopes to use the sentiment of that song to help it earn a chance to play host to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament.
If that sounds crazy, you’re right. It does. Two years ago, MSU was lucky to get more than 1,000 fans for its women’s basketball games. Even though the program was in the midst of its third-straight losing season, there were signs of hope. Former Texas A&M associate head coach Vic Schaefer and his staff had secured a nationally ranked recruiting class for the 2013-14 season and were hot on the trail of Victoria Vivians, at the time one of the nation’s most sought after recruits. Word that Vivians said no to Kentucky and all of the nationally recognized suitors to play for MSU added to the anticipation, as did a 22-14 season and a trip to the quarterfinals of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.
Vivians’ decision whetted the appetite of MSU fans. If you were at Humphrey Coliseum for any of MSU’s games last season in the WNIT, you could tell the energy and enthusiasm was building. Crowds grew from 1,059 to 1,642 to 1,809 to 3,006. If not for a last-second 3-pointer by South Florida’s Courtney Williams, MSU likely would have earned a fifth-straight game and a chance to eclipse 4,000 fans.
The momentum continued this season in the Preseason WNIT. The crowds of 2,531 and 2,011 against Mercer and Arkansas State helped MSU earn a third home game against then-No. 17 West Virginia. West Virginia could have been awarded the home game because it was ranked and coming off a trip to the NCAA tournament in 2014. But MSU’s higher attendance figures in the first two rounds gave it the home-court advantage that it capitalized on to earn a 74-61 victory. The win propelled MSU on to the next round, where it defeated Western Kentucky 88-77 to capture the WNIT title.
Those victories were part of a 15-0 run to start the season that helped re-introduce MSU to the national audience. Now at 23-3 and 8-3 in the Southeastern Conference, MSU is No. 13 in The Associated Press Top 25 and No. 15 in the USA Today Coaches Poll. This is the 11th-straight week the Bulldogs have been in the coaches poll, and it comes on the heels of a 63-61 overtime victory against then-No. 14 Texas AM.
Even Texas A&M coach Gary Blair, whose team defeated MSU 73-35 last season in College Station, Texas, had to compliment his former coach for the atmosphere he and his coaches have created in less than three years.
You only needed to look around Humphrey Coliseum on Sunday and wonder how far MSU could go. Schaefer has said all season that he and his players were going to embrace expectations. They took care of business by running the non-conference table, which gave them confidence and momentum even without seniors Martha Alwal, Savannah Carter, and Kendra Grant at 100 percent.
All three have returned, and while Carter admitted Sunday she isn’t at 100 percent, she is part of a team that refuses to lose. There have been freshman mistakes and offensive and defensive lapses, but the Bulldogs have come to reflect the tenacity and hard-nosed nature of their coach. It’s hard to imagine ESPN.com’s Charlie Creme has MSU as a No. 4 seed in his latest edition of Bracketology, his guesstimate at how the women’s NCAA tournament field will look.
Today, the NCAA tournament selection committee is supposed to announce its top 20 teams with less than a month remaining in the regular season. There is a lot of basketball left to be played and plenty of upsets to ruin projected NCAA bids, but even Creme has MSU at No. 15 in his list of top 25 teams. With four regions for the NCAA tournament, that means MSU is on track to earning a No. 4 seed and a chance to play host to the NCAA tournament. That’s something MSU didn’t accomplish when it had its best players — LaToya Thomas and Tan White — leading the program.
MSU also didn’t earn that distinction in 2009-10, when it had its best season . MSU had to go to Pittsburgh to beat Middle Tennessee State and Ohio State to earn the program’s first trip to the Sweet 16.
If MSU beats No. 10 Kentucky on Thursday night in Lexington, Kentucky, and then takes care of business the rest of the regular season, it likely will secure a top four seed and a double bye for the SEC tournament next month in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Even if it loses its first game in that tournament, MSU would be positioned to be one of the top 16 teams and earn a chance to play host to its first NCAA tournament games.
That’s a lot of what ifs, but March Madness demands that kind of forward thinking. MSU is more than capable of realizing those goals. Alwal is more engaged on both ends, and the Bulldogs also seem to recognize the importance of getting her involved. MSU’s defense and intensity also will be hard to match by anyone outside the SEC. And with Vivians, a home-grown talent leading the team in scoring, MSU has all of the ingredients to pack Humphrey Coliseum for its final two home games against Florida and Ole Miss to send a message to the NCAA tournament: We deserve to play host to the first two rounds.
In a sport that has talked for years about finding new places to grow, Starkville — not South Detroit — is that place.
Don’t stop believin’ it will happen.
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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