STARKVILLE — A little goes a long way with Dominique Dillingham.
If you have watched the Mississippi State junior throw her body on the floor for loose balls or sacrifice her body to take a charge, you understand how much the 5-foot-9 guard gives to her team.
So imagine how a little improvement in Dillingham’s game will help the No. 8 MSU women’s basketball team solidify its standing as one of the nation’s elite programs.
Through two games, Dillingham appears to be embracing a role as a bigger scorer. After notching her first career double-double (13 points, 11 rebounds) in the season opener against Samford, Dillingham had eight points in a 107-43 victory against Grambling State on Saturday. That might not seem like a big contribution, but Dillingham had six points in nine minutes in the 10-minute first quarter. She would have had more points, but she played only 21 minutes in the blowout.
Dillingham will try to continue her strong start to the season at 7 tonight when MSU (2-0) plays host to Mississippi Valley State (0-3) at Humphrey Coliseum.
“I am just trying to take what they are giving me,” Dillingham said. “I am just looking for my openings a little more, I guess, and being more confident in my shot.”
Dillingham worked hard in the offseason to improve her shooting in an effort to become a more consistent scorer coach Vic Schaefer can use to balance the floor. She said she welcomed Schaefer’s challenge to improve her shooting percentage to 40 percent. A year ago, Dillingham shot 35.1 percent from the field (33.3 percent in Southeastern Conference regular season) and 35.3 percent from 3-point range.
In issuing the challenge, Schaefer told Dillingham he planned to run more sets for her on offense, so she better be ready to play a bigger role.
Dillingham has shown she is ready to be a bigger offensive threat like she was at Klein Collins High School in Spring, Texas. As a junior, Dillingham was second on the team in scoring 11.9 points per game and shot 41 percent from the field. As a senior, she increased her production to 17.8 ppg. and shot a little better (42 percent) from the field while leading the team in rebounding (11.3), assists (2.5), and steals (3.9) per game.
While Dillingham acknowledges the high school game is very different from the college game, she is accustomed to being asked to do more on offense.
“It is a little different just because I know now I do have to score a little more, but it is not a lot of pressure because I know I have help from my other teammates, and I know on any given night anybody else can step up and score, too, ” Dillingham said.
Dillingham averaged only 5.7 ppg. last season, but her shooting percentage increased from 31.6 percent as a freshman (when she averaged 8.8 ppg.) to 35.1 percent as a sophomore. Schaefer hopes Dillingham’s refined shooting stroke helps her improve that percentage a little more because he knows how valuable she is when she is on the floor.
“She has to do it. She has no choice,” Schaefer said. “I think she understands that. She is embracing that role and being much more aggressive there. In the end, I think it is going to make us all better.”
Dillingham was sixth on the team in scoring last season. She also was tied for third in rebounding (5.0), third in assists (60), first in steals (69), first in minutes (31.1), and first in charges taken, even though that isn’t an official statistic.
Dillingham also has developed a reputation for being the team’s best defender, so she usually is paired against an opponent’s best offensive player. All of those things can weigh on a player’s shooting percentage, but Schaefer loves all of the other things Dillingham does, so he wants her on the court as much as possible.
“I think she is very comfortable in that role (as someone who is asked to score more),” Schaefer said. “She was that way in high school. Dom is a confident young lady. I think she is very confident in her skill set. I am certainly extremely confident in it. I think she is an awfully good basketball player, and I think this role is the next step for her.”
Schaefer said Dillingham’s toughness attracted him to her in the recruiting process. He said Dillingham didn’t get a lot of attention from top-25 programs, but he was confident Dillingham’s intangibles could help elevate his program. He also felt Dillingham’s game would continue to develop and that she would be a great fit in Starkville as he and his coaching staff worked to increase the team’s level of talent.
Dillingham said Schaefer has helped build her confidence by telling her all of the time he knows she can shoot the ball and that he believes in her shot. She feels her maturation as a bigger contributor on offense is an on-going process that she is still getting used to.
Improved ballhandling will help Dillingham make that adjustment. Last season, more than 37 percent of Dillingham’s shots attempted came from 3-point range. Against Grambling State, Dillingham showed a willingness to draw the defense in and take them to the basket and pull up for mid-range jump shots. Her ability to spread the floor and to create off the dribble could be a valuable weapon as MSU gets deeper into its schedule and figures to see a variety of defenses designed to limit touches to leading scorer Victoria Vivians and to post players Chinwe Okorie and Teaira McCowan.
Dillingham said making that adjustment hasn’t a big deal. You could say it is just another little change Dillingham is making to help MSU improve on a program record 27-win season from 2014-15 and get past the second round of the NCAA tournament.
“I worked on it a lot more this summer, just getting comfortable shooting off the dribble,” Dillingham said. “I am a lot more comfortable with it, so when we run dribble-drive and stuff like that, I am open on the elbow when I drive, so it is a lot easier to stop and shoot it.”
MSU will continue its season-opening homestand at 6 p.m. Friday when it plays host to Norfolk State. It will wrap up the five-game stint at 2 p.m. Sunday against Savannah State.
n In related news, MSU continued to make history Monday, as it climbed to No. 8 in this week’s The Associated Press Top 25. The Bulldogs climbed two spots from No. 10, their ranking last week, which matched the program’s all-time best mark.
“I am really proud,” Schaefer said. “I am proud of our team. At this time of year, it doesn’t matter. You want to be No. 8 in March. … There is a lot of pride in what we have been able to accomplish here. … There is a lot of pride getting us to this level and getting our kids to this level. I am very, very proud to be the head coach at Mississippi State, and I am very proud we have been able to get it where we have been in such a short amount of time.”
MSU is one of four SEC teams ranked in the top 10. South Carolina and Tennessee stayed at Nos. 2 and 4, respectively, while Texas A&M climbed two spots to 10th and Kentucky one place to No. 12.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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