GREENVILLE, S.C. — As confetti rained down at Bon Secours Wellness Arena, Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer meandered off the court.
Meeting coach Dawn Staley’s South Carolina squad (32-1) for the second time this season, Schaefer’s bunch were pummeled 76-62 in Sunday’s SEC Tournament Final — giving the Gamecocks their fifth tournament title in six years.
“I thought their energy level was outstanding,” Schaefer said of South Carolina. “We got beat up and down the floor quite a bit today.”
Sticking true to their form over the past three days in Greenville, the Bulldogs (27-6) again slogged out of the gate against the No. 1-ranked Gamecocks, shooting a meager 25 percent from the floor in the opening frame — bringing their overall shooting mark in their past three first quarters to 27 percent.
Probing for answers along the bench, Schaefer burned two timeouts through the game’s first 15 minutes and employed 10 different players in the first two quarters alone as the Gamecocks outscored the Bulldogs 18-10 in the first quarter.
“Sometimes you can’t really tell because everybody expresses their energy, how they feel differently,” freshman guard Aliyah Matharu said. “We just let it play out. We got to the game, (you) could tell it was off.”
As MSU’s shooting woes persisted into the second quarter, things got chippy as the partial South Carolina crowd roared. Corralling an errant rebound before being tied up, junior center Yemiyah Morris was shoved by South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston. Barking some choice words in Boston’s direction, Morris was then confronted by tournament MVP Mikiah Herbert Harrigan — earning both players technical fouls.
“For us, that’s just not something we typically get into or are about,” Schaefer said. “But I think for Yemiyah — a first-year kid in our program — she’s gonna learn. She understands that it’s not just about you, but at the same time she’s competitive and she’s one of our kids that’s really shown improvement lately. She’ll learn to stay competitive but we’re not trying to out-debate someone on the floor.”
Taking nearly 12 of the 15 allotted minutes at halftime, MSU trotted out for the second half as the familiar tones of Fast Life Yunstaz’s “Swag Surfin'” emanated from the stadium speakers. But as was the case in the opening 20 minutes of play, the Bulldogs’ shooting woes endured.
With South Carolina’s length bothering MSU at the rim, the Bulldogs settled for perimeter jumpers and wild floaters as they shot a combined 33.8 percent from the floor on the afternoon.
After scoring a combined 52 points in MSU’s victories over LSU and Kentucky this week, freshman guard Rickea Jackson — who was named to the All-Tournament team postgame — finished with nine points on 12 shots.
“I thought Rickea was just tired tonight,” Schaefer said. “I couldn’t get her up and down the floor. It was just one of those nights for her and again that kid has logged a lot of minutes for us and really played well.”
Senior guard Jordan Danberry was similarly stymied, scoring 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting — well below her season mark of 65.7 percent from the floor.
With Danberry and Jackson struggling to find any semblance of consistency, Matharu afforded the Bulldogs their lone form of productive offense Sunday.
Backing up her 15-point effort against Kentucky in the SEC Tournament semifinals, Matharu finished Sunday’s contest with 17 points — pushing her per game scoring average over the past five contests to 19.3 points.
“I love playing against competition,” she said. “That’s the reason why I chose to come here. They play tough. They play my style of basketball. I want every night to be tough so we can get better as a unit, not just individually.”
Now in his eighth year as the head coach at MSU, Schaefer has built a consistent winner during his time in Starkville with a career record of 221-62. Despite that, the Bulldogs have now fallen in the SEC Tournament finals to South Carolina in five of the past six years.
And while Sunday’s result offered a look at the ongoing distance between the two programs, MSU should head into this month’s NCAA Tournament as no worse than a No. 3 seed — giving the Bulldogs a continued optimism this year’s young squad can compete with the nation’s elite not just in the future, but in the present as well.
“Tonight was just another obstacle for us,” Matharu said. “We didn’t do our best. I know going forward in practice, we’re going to get better from this. We’re going to use this as fuel. We got to prepare and get ready for the tournament.”
“I’d look for us to have great competitive basketball games with them in years to come,” Schaefer added of South Carolina. “And I think that’s what makes our games with each other so special. Today wasn’t good. We got taken to the woodshed, but we’ll be back.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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