STARKVILLE — Roshunda Johnson didn’t catch the Pop-Up Video that included anecdotes and highlights of her career at Mississippi State that was shown Sunday on the video board at Humphrey Coliseum.
Johnson will be pleased to know that the shimmy she displayed with Blair Schaefer in telling a joke equaled the moves she unleashed on the Southern Mississippi women’s basketball team.
Johnson poured in a career-high 29 points as one of five players in double figures to lead No. 7 MSU to a 91-56 victory before a crowd of 5,321 at the Hump.
Teaira McCowan (17 points, 10 rebounds), Victoria Vivians (15), and Schaefer and Chloe Bibby (10) also scored in double figures to help MSU improve to 3-0.
But Johnson, a redshirt senior, was the star of the day. She added four rebounds, three assists, and two steals in 29 minutes on her Senior Day. As part of her special day, MSU unveiled new segments on the video board that featured Johnson. One included musical accompaniment from Joe Esposito’s song “You’re the Best Around” from the movie “Karate Kid.” Johnson said after the game she hasn’t seen the movie, but that she will have to. The Pop-Up Video was an ode to the old television show on VH1.
Earlier in the game, Johnson and Schaefer were paired together in a segment in which they traded jokes in an attempt to make the other laugh. Both players tried to keep straight faces during the piece, but Johnson added a little shimmy of her shoulders when she told the joke “How do you make a tissue dance?” Schaefer said she didn’t know. The answer: “You put a little boogie in it.”
Schaefer couldn’t help but crack up when she heard the answer. It helped that Johnson did her best to sell the answer with her sitting boogie.
The exchange was just another example of the chemistry Johnson, a transfer from Oklahoma State, and Schaefer, a senior guard, have built in the last two seasons.
“It is fun to watch these kids play and share the ball,” MSU coach Vic Schaefer said. “I think they feed on that. I think they enjoy the chemistry this team has. When we make shots like we made shots today, it is not only fun to watch, it is fun to coach. They’re going to be hard to beat.
“These two (referring to Johnson and Blair Schaefer, his daughter) have had (that chemistry) for going on a year. It is just spreading to our team. You throw Chloe (into the mix), and she is a kid who sees the floor and has been with us for two months. You have two point guards that you have no drop-off with. Both of them see the floor so well, especially in transition, and are able to find these two where they like to be. I am telling you, it is a different team. I can’t say I have ever coached a team that shot the ball as well as we have had (said while knocking on the table he is sitting in front of).”
Schaefer joked MSU probably will go to Cancun, Mexico, later this week to play against Arizona State, Columbia, and Green Bay and won’t be able to throw a basketball in the ocean if it is standing on the beach at high tide. That remains to be seen, but the Bulldogs showed again they should have enough shooters to help them make up for games in which one or two players struggle with their shooting.
“The four-guard lineup is evolving,” said coach Schaefer, who started Vivians at the power forward with Johnson, Schafer, Morgan William, and McCowan. “I think it is here to stay. Now I have to figure out some different things to do with it that can make us even better because it is not something I was even thinking about a month or two months ago, but this is who we are and I think it is a tough matchup for folks.”
Schaefer said MSU’s current starting lineup reminds him of the personnel South Carolina had surrounding All-America center A’ja Wilson last season. The Bulldogs know all too well about the problems the Gamecocks’ perimeter players presented. South Carolina beat MSU three times, including in the national championship game in Dallas.
Schaefer hopes MSU can get to that level. He credited his coaches for making the players get in the gym and do extra shooting. He said the additional training appears to be helping Johnson, who he thought played harder on the defensive end and took fewer plays off.
“She is getting to where she can go for long periods of time without having to come out and rest, and I need her to do that,” Schaefer said. “I need her to be able to stay in there for extended periods, especially when she is going 11-for-20. I thought all of her shots were good shots.”
Blair Schaefer said she and Johnson have a good understanding of spacing on the basketball court, which she feels helps them share the basketball so well. William led the way with nine assists, while Jazzmun Holmes had seven. Schaefer chipped in with three. She feels the chemistry MSU has this season is a carryover from the 2016-17 campaign.
“I think we just realize what we lost in our four seniors that were great for us,” Blair Schaefer said. “We figured out how to not only fill the roles they brought to us, but to add on to what we brought last year. I think part of the chemistry that is happening now is just carrying over.
“When you play with someone for so long and you realize what each other can do to help our team, you figure out a way to find where those people are when you just want the team to win.”
Johnson agrees. She credited William and Holmes for their ability to get her, Schaefer, and Vivians the ball in the right spots. She too, though, showed a knack for making the right pass that at times Sunday looked contagious. Johnson found Vivians for a 3-pointer in the first quarter. But her best assist came in the third quarter when she used a power dribble from the right wing to penetrate the lane and draw a defender. Johnson had her head up the whole time and found Bibby in the left corner for an open 3-pointer.
“I think I still have a lot to work on, but like coach said before the game, you have to have a good defensive game and I feel like my defense led to my offense,” Johnson said.
Like any good shooter, Johnson said she feels “every day” has to be a great shooting day to help her team. Her latest effort — 11-for-20 from the field, including 5-for-11 from 3-point range — fit the bill on a day MSU looked like it was ready to make the most of its four-guard lineup.
With unselfish play like the Bulldogs displayed Sunday, different just might be better.
“I definitely think so,” Schaefer said when asked if the unselfishness was contagious. “Not only for us, but our point guards love when they create and pitch it to us because they take so much pride in getting us the ball in the pocket so we can finish for them. I think about today and last year, just the combinations that come in, the continuity we had, people take so much pride in keeping that going, and it is infectious.”
NOTES: Coach Schaefer said he will have announcement about Williams, who wasn’t with the team Sunday, sometime early this week. He hopes all of the players realize Williams’ status with the team creates an opening for someone to earn more minutes. “It is really difficult right now when you lose your best athlete in Iggy (Jacaira Allen) and we turn around and we haven’t had Ameshya, and we’re probably not going to have her. For me, and what I try to tell these kids, it is all about how you respond in these situations. You can’t sit around and wallow. You can’t sit around and have a pity party. This is a chance to respond in a way that probably nobody will think you can. To me, this is what it is about. … We’re just different. We just have to coach better and teach better. We have to get a couple of kids ready that maybe we weren’t thinking we were going to have to get ready. The rest of us, we have to be better. It really has allowed us to really, fully invest in our lineup that we’re starting with. I think our kids are getting more and more comfortable with it. I know I am, so again, it is just about responding. Life ain’t perfect. This is not a great deal. I am extremely disheartened over it, but, at the end of the day, my team is the most important people to me.” … MSU will play Arizona State at 12:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day in its first game at the in Cancun Challenge in Cancun, Mexico.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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