STARKVILLE — There was every excuse for Mississippi State women’s basketball to have a slow return from the Christmas break. The team traveled to Philadelphia, Penn., for a game against La Salle on Dec. 20 before dispersing across the country to their respective families and friends for the Christmas holiday. They returned to Starkville on Dec. 26 and had little time before a game against Samford. In addition to travel fatigue, guard Trayanna Crisp was recovering from the flu, and Madison Francis and Favour Nwaedozi had to fight through similar symptoms to get ready for the game.

It was an opponent that head coach Sam Purcell’s team could have beaten on autopilot, but that wasn’t the team who showed up at Humphrey Coliseum on Sunday.

The Bulldogs came out at full speed and posted the best scoring performance of the Purcell era in a 112-54 throttling of Samford, improving to 13-1 in the final nonconference test before SEC play begins later this week.

“Four quarters, we’ve talked about that,” Purcell said.

Throughout December, he has pushed his team to play a more complete game and kept his rotation intact until late in the game to prepare his team for conference play. That work has paid off with several big wins and two straight victories where MSU won in all four quarters.

“It’s obviously going to be a key in this league,” he continued. “I can’t talk enough about this league. If you look at bracketology, if the tournament started today, I think you have five teams that are going to host. Potentially three teams that could be in the Final Four.”

The Bulldogs led 51-26 at halftime, but didn’t let off out of the break. The team scored 38 in the third quarter, just four shy of a program record for points in a quarter. Four players recorded double-doubles and three players scored more than 20 points, led by Favour Nwaedozi’s career best of 30.

“Like we’ve always practiced, we’ve tried this past month to be a four-quarter team,” Nwaedozi said. “Not just winning the first and second, or just winning the game. Every quarter is a new start, it’s 0-0, so we’ve got to put our heads in the game and play as we started.”

“We play our first SEC game on Thursday, so it means a lot to be a four-quarter team, like Favour said,” added Jaylah Lampley, who scored 24. “That’s just the coach’s way of demanding excellence out of us, so it was definitely emphasized (at halftime).”

Lampley made her first start of the season in place of Crisp, but has remained a key contributor throughout the start of her freshman campaign. Her size at guard only boosted the physical advantage Nwaedozi and Francis gave the Bulldogs in the paint, leading to 18 offensive rebounds and 64 points down low for the team.

At guard, Destiney McPhaul recorded eight points and 10 assists while Chandler Prater posted a 10-10 double-double.

Another factor that may not have made the difference in the result but certainly gave the team a boost was the crowd of 3,588 fans in attendance for the matchup, a bit of a boost from the games just before the holidays, and there was a noticeable energy in the lower bowl. Whether it was a dunk by Francis, the most exciting of her 23 points, or a fast break to capitalize in transition, the fans brought the energy to match.

Purcell wants more on Thursday as the Bulldogs take on Auburn.

“Every game is going to matter, and I can’t emphasize enough the support we’re going to need from the fans,” he said. “They can see the hard work that my young ladies are doing to create an atmosphere, to give us home court advantage against a great Auburn team, who should have beaten Oregon. They’ve been battle-tested, beaten California. Their defense creates problems, which leads to transition buckets, so if this is going to be a five-point game, let’s try to have another five-point advantage with our crowd.”