Most of the time, the fans start filing out of a basketball arena when the home team goes down 20 late in the second half. At the very least, the visitors’ efforts would have silenced the crowd to the point where they could finish the job in relative peace.
But on Sunday, when the third-quarter deficit grew to a point that would prove insurmountable, the 10,500 Mississippi State women’s basketball fans who packed Humphrey Coliseum stayed right where they had been all season — raucously behind a team they hoped, even expected, to still make a game of it. The Bulldogs cut the deficit to 10 early in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t enough.
The third-ranked Bulldogs fell by 18 points to Tennessee on Senior Day before the second largest crowd to see the women’s team play at home. Maybe it was the emotion of the moment, maybe the gravity of it. Either way, MSU showed up to the moment a half too late.
With the loss went a shot at a share of the Southeastern Conference regular-season title, and it delayed the team’s earning the highest single-season win total in program history. It was a disappointing day, for sure, but it hardly detracts from the accomplishments of what coach Vic Schaefer routinely calls a “special” group of young women — or the promise of what it still can do.
Before Sunday’s game, seniors Ketara Chapel, Dominique Dillingham, Chinwe Okorie and Breanna Richardson took their bows as the winningest senior class in program history with 104 and counting. During the game, the fans earnestly cheered for their team, speaking at a distance to each of the women on the floor as if they were related.
At game’s end, those fans swallowed hard the bitter pill the Tennessee Lady Volunteers had fed them and followed it with hopeful sentiments.
“I hope we get them in the SEC tournament,” one said to another as they filed from their seats. “I bet they can’t do that again.”
In a few weeks, this team will undoubtedly play host to NCAA tournament games for a second-straight year — this time as a No. 1 or No. 2 seed. The Bulldogs still are poised to make a deep tournament run, despite ending the regular season with back-to-back losses.
Whether those tournament expectations materialize or fall short, nothing can negate what this team has done for the university, the state, and the sport.
Each time these players take the court, they treat the fans to elite college basketball. Each time they man the carpool line at a local school, they give starry-eyed young children a chance to high-five champions.
On a far more basic level, I saw two Pee-Wee basketball girls not long ago at the Starkville Sportsplex shooting around before their team practice began, both in the 7- to 9-year-old league. The one with the ball declared, “I’ll be Victoria Vivians.” The other, tasked with defending her replied, “Oh yeah. Well, I’ll be Dominique Dillingham.”
That, more than anything else, is what this team has done. That’s what makes it “special.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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