“Season saver” and “gauntlet” carry extra meaning with a month to go before the Southeastern Conference women’s basketball tournament.
ESPN.com’s Charlie Creme was hard at work breaking down Ratings Percentage Indexes (RPI) and Strength of Schedules (SOS) long before he used those words Monday when analyzing the Mississippi State women’s basketball team’s odds of earning an opportunity to play host to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament.
Creme will continue to break out new words to describe the fate of MSU and others for the next five weeks leading up to the NCAA tournament. In that time, he likely will have at least two more versions of his best guesses at the top 16 seeds for this year’s tournament.
While Creme will compare resumes and pit conferences against each other, Vic Schaefer will concentrate on getting results on the court. As much as MSU’s fourth-year head coach enjoys dissecting the numbers and charting patterns, he said Monday he stays away from all of the punditry and prognostications about the NCAA tournament. He knows from past experience that the best course of action is to win as many games as possible so you leave no doubt in the minds of the members of the NCAA tournament selection committee that your team deserves a chance to play be a top-16 seed.
Last season, MSU missed out on that goal despite winning a program-record 11 league games and finishing third in the SEC. As a result, MSU had to go to Durham, North Carolina, for the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament. MSU defeated Tulane in its first game before falling to Duke 64-56 on its home court.
This season, MSU (19-4, 6-3 SEC) has all but sealed a second-consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament. A 65-63 victory in overtime against Tennessee on Thursday was MSU’s first in 37 meetings in the series. It also was the “season saver” Creme referred to because it stopped a two-game losing streak and a run in which the Bulldogs had lost three of their last four games.
Schaefer declined to characterize MSU’s victory against Tennessee as a “season saver” because he said it was important for his team to bounce back from a 57-51 loss to No. 2 South Carolina and win the next game. He said it just so happened that MSU won a game it needed to have against one of the most storied programs in the history of the game.
MSU built on that momentum Sunday with an even bigger win, a 65-55 decision at Arkansas. With seven regular-season games remaining, No. 11 MSU has chances to earn three victories against ranked teams — No. 21 Missouri, No. 12 Texas A&M, and No. 18 Kentucky — in the “gauntlet” part of Creme’s breakdown. The games against Missouri and Kentucky will be in Starkville. Games at LSU (on Thursday), at Ole Miss, at Vanderbilt, and against Alabama round out the schedule.
On paper, MSU likely will be favored in all but the Feb. 11 matchup against the Aggies at Reed Arena. The team’s success in that “gauntlet” will go a long way to determining if MSU finishes in the top 16.
Creme’s picks only served to tease women’s basketball fans eager to see if their team had a chance to be a top-16 seed. Later Monday, at halftime of the Notre Dame-Duke women’s game on ESPN2, the NCAA for the first time this early in a season unveiled its top 10 seeds for the NCAA tournament. MSU wasn’t on a list that included UConn, South Carolina, Notre Dame, Baylor, Texas, Ohio State, Arizona State, Oregon State, Maryland, and UCLA. The NCAA will release two more top-10 lists leading up to the final field of 64 teams for the NCAA tournament, which will begin March 18.
Schaefer said he hasn’t talked to his players about any of MSU’s possible seeds or its chances to play host to the NCAA tournament. He said it is a new team in a new season with new goals, and that his team has a lot of work left to do to forge its identity in what he hopes is an even better season.
“We have to bear down,” Schaefer said. “I thought we matured a little bit at Arkansas. I was really concerned having a letdown energy wise and focus wise after two real knockdown, drag-out, physical, emotional games. We reminded the girls of that and we came out early (against Arkansas) and established we were there and ready to play.”
Schaefer admits the Bulldogs will need to play with that mind-set for as long as they can in each of the next seven games. If they can do that, they likely will win over Creme, the women’s game’s version of Joe Lunardi. The jobs of Creme and Lunardi are to create discussion about the NCAA women’s and men’s tournament and to give fans their best guesses at which teams will be invited to participate in March Madness.
Creme has consistently had MSU as a top-16 seed that will get a chance to play host to the NCAA tournament. In writing about the NCAA’s top 10 later Monday, Creme said the NCAA chose UCLA as its 10th team ahead of Florida State, Louisville, MSU and Texas A&M (in alphabetical order).
After MSU, Creme lists Florida State, Texas A&M, Stanford, Michigan State, and Kentucky as next in line to play host to the first and second rounds. With a RPI of 34 and a SOS of 77, MSU needs all the wins it can get. Last season, MSU’s SOS proved to be the key factor in why Duke earned the all-important chance to play host to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament. If the NCAA tournament selection committee had to decide today, it would see MSU’s RPI was lower than all 10 of the teams on the NCAA’s list. Its SOS also was higher than every team except Maryland (79), according to RealTimeRPI.com.
Schaefer won’t be thinking about those numbers, either. He said his job will be to make sure all of the players maintain a workmanlike approach and do their best in practice to prepare for games. While pleased with his team’s approach late in games and its attention to detail, Schaefer knows the Bulldogs can’t afford any lapses the rest of the way because one slip-up can be the difference between playing at home or on the road.
“I have got a lot of confidence in this team, and it stems from the confidence I really have in Dominique (Dillingham), Victoria (Vivians), and Morgan (William),” Schaefer said. “When those three bring it, everybody behind them brings it. When they’re guarding with pressure, everybody sees that they’re playing hard so I better play hard behind them. It starts with pressure and activity on the ball. I feel like those kids are really understanding the importance of playing well every night. I think Morgan is coming along and understanding her role and the accountability of her role.”
MSU will need all Dillingham, Vivians, and William to lead the way if MSU is going to navigate the “gauntlet” and earn a chance to make another piece of history by playing in the NCAA tournament in Starkville.
Adam Minichino is sports editor of The Dispatch. You can reach him by email at aminichino@cdispatch. Follow him on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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