STARKVILLE — For 25 minutes, the struggles were gone.
In place of 30-percent shooting from the field and 20-turnover efforts in its final three regular-season games, the Mississippi State women’s basketball team looked like an offensive juggernaut against Kentucky in the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference tournament in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the Wildcats executed nearly as efficiently, which is why MSU led by only four points at halftime after playing arguably its best first half of basketball against a quality opponent.
MSU’s inability to maintain its offensive production was a primary reason it ultimately lost to Kentucky 76-67 on March 6. A thumb injury to leading scorer Victoria Vivians also played a role in the Bulldogs shooting 25.9 percent (7 of 27) from the field, which enabled the Wildcats to rally from a 15-point deficit.
Coach Vic Schaefer hopes No. 5 seed MSU (26-6) can recapture that offensive execution at 1:30 p.m. today (ESPN2) when it takes on No. 12 seed Tulane (22-10) in the first round of the NCAA tournament at Cameron Indoor Stadium on the campus of Duke University.
“Tulane is well coached,” Schaefer said. “They have some seniors and juniors who play a bulk of their minutes. They do start a freshman (Kolby Morgan, their leading scorer at 12 points per game), but they’re a veteran ballclub. … I am expecting a heck of a ballgame.”
Senior Danielle Blagg (9.4 ppg., 4.5 rebounds per game), sophomore Leslie Vorpahl (7.5 ppg.), senior Jamie Kaplan (6.8 ppg., 4.7 assists per game), and senior Tiffany Dale (6.6 ppg., 6.1 rpg.) played last season in Tulane’s 77-68 loss to MSU in the first round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.
This season, the addition of Morgan gave Tulane another weapon that it used to finish tied for fifth with East Carolina in the American Athletic Conference. Blagg and Morgan were named third-team All-AAC, while Morgan was named to the league’s all-freshman team.
Schaefer said Tulane likely will run a triangle offense, an attack MSU hasn’t see a lot of this season. He said a past matchup against Stanford when he was associate head coach at Texas A&M will help him break Tulane down and to prepare his players for a different offensive look.
While MSU will have to be ready for a balanced opponent that features only one player in double figures, Schaefer his team can re-capture the rhythm it had against Kentucky in the SEC tournament. MSU shot better than 50 percent from the field for the majority of the first half before settling for a 41-37 halftime lead. The Bulldogs extended that lead to 54-39 and appeared on the verge of running away with the game, but the Wildcats turned up the pressure on defense. MSU also couldn’t adjust after a piece of the fingernail on Vivians’ right thumb broke and affected her shooting. The freshman, who leads the Bulldogs in scoring at 15.1 ppg., missed her final six shots from the field and still led the team with 19 points.
Senior guard Kendra Grant said the Bulldogs had an “offensive slump” and worked in practice on dummying the plays out and walking through them without a defense. She said the coaches took time to make sure all of the players knew their responsibilities. The execution against Kentucky is something Grant hopes MSU can duplicate in the NCAA tournament.
“I think how we did it in practice really paid off in the game, and we have been doing that a lot more lately, so, hopefully, we continue to execute for the rest of the games,” Grant said.
Schaefer said MSU still had some good looks at the basket after Vivians went out. He said Kentucky played a role in his team’s struggles by doubling senior center Martha Alwal (17 points, 10 rebounds). Alwal was 6 of 6 from the field, but she missed her only attempt in the final 11 minutes, 57 seconds. As a result, MSU went 9:45 without a field goal and couldn’t respond to a 24-4 run by the Wildcats.
“When we were playing well, we were making shots and executing our offense,” Schaefer said. “I thought we were getting some really good looks. When it got away from us, we missed some shots.”
Schaefer has had plenty of time to go back and dissect what happened against Kentucky, so he hopes the Bulldogs do a better job of making players score over them, not by them. He said the Bulldogs also have to do a better job of rotating on defense to help their teammates.
On offense, Schaefer hopes MSU can leave sub-30-percent shooting efforts in the past. The Bulldogs suffered through similar efforts against Alabama, South Carolina, and Ole Miss to end the regular season. MSU’s best shooting effort in that group was a 34.5-percent performance in a 69-50 loss at South Carolina. Schaefer commented regularly down the stretch that MSU needed to improve on offense. He saw signs of that improvement in the SEC tournament, but he knows the Bulldogs will have to do it for longer than 25 or 26 minutes if they want to survive and advance.
The winner of today’s game will play the winner of today’s game between No. 13 seed Albany and host and No. 4 seed Duke at 11 a.m. Sunday (ESPN2).
“We just keep kind of reiterating the things we have done all year,” Schaefer said when asked if he had tweaked anything offensively to account for the strong start against the Wildcats. “We get away from those things sometimes. If you remember in the first part of the year we were frenetic. We just pushed it, pushed it, pushed it and ran in transition. We were up and down up and down up and down. We kind of need to get back to that a little bit. I don’t want wasted possessions, but we need to get back to doing that.”
Schaefer said he looked at the videotape of last season’s game against Tulane. He said the Bulldogs pushed the tempo and pressured the Green Wave thanks to Dominique Dillingham’s and Savannah Carter’s willingness to attack the basket. He hopes for more of that today and that his team will play “hungry” and not be satisfied it has had a record-breaking season for overall wins, wins in the SEC, and attendance (single-game record and season) and earned its first trip to the NCAA tournament since the 2009-10 season.
“We need to go get out and go climb the steepest part of the mountain, which is the NCAA tournament, and go make it happen,” Schaefer said. “I think they have bigger ambitions than just, ‘Hey, we’re in,’ and good job.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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