The Mississippi State women’s basketball team suffered its first SEC defeat in Oklahoma on Sunday, the second loss of the 2025-26 campaign.
Head coach Sam Purcell’s group took on the No. 8 Sooners in the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, and immediately got knocked down with a 21-8 deficit after the opening quarter.
“When you play an offense like them, I think they have the potential to be a Final Four team. They’re that good, one though five, there’s no weak Wilma. You’ve got to come out,” Purcell said on MSU radio after the game. “We started 1-9 in shots around the paint, and when you miss shots to put pressure on them, they’re too good in transition. Next thing you know, you’re down 10.”
The opening frame set the tone for what would be a very long afternoon for the Bulldogs. Oklahoma scored 27, 24 and 23 over the remaining quarters, seizing an opportunity to up the tempo and utilize their pace in a 95-47 win.
Purcell noted that the speed with which Oklahoma was able to attack led to the lopsided score, and it’s something his team has to work on, because they haven’t been knocked down like that yet this year.
“I called a timeout there in the second quarter, we’re down 12, and said: ‘Listen, this last 5:36, let’s get it under 10. We’ll come out and regroup, we’ll be fine.’ We miss two shots, and next thing you know, they’re up 16, 18,” Purcell said. “It was just one of those nights. We’ve got to have a bad taste in our mouth.”
All five of the Sooners’ starting lineup finished in double digit points, with Raegan Beers, Sahara Williams and Zya Vann posting double-double performances in the frontcourt.
The Bulldogs, on the other hand, shot a woeful 20% from the floor, hitting just one of 25 attempts from beyond the arc.
For MSU, it wasn’t necessarily OU’s scoring that cost them the game, it was their own inability to gain offensive momentum in the first half to balance out the possession numbers and keep the contest close.
“Our spirit got derailed because we couldn’t hit shots,” Purcell said. “The good thing about Oklahoma, you want to score inside, Beers is an All-American. She clogs up the paint and derails that. They go under ball screens, they ice it, they force you to set outside shots. You can’t go 1-25 against a Final Four team, simple as that.”
The Bulldogs, now 14-2 on the year, have just a few days to rebound and prepare for their next test, at home against No. 23 Tennessee on Thursday.
While disappointed with the nature of the defeat, particularly after what he perceived as a positive week of practice, Purcell is eager for his team to learn from the loss. He looked to another SEC program as evidence that taking lumps is sometimes just the nature of living in a stacked conference.
“Missouri gets waxed, but then they go to Florida and win. That’s what the SEC is,” Purcell said. “If you don’t show up and don’t perform, you’ll get embarrassed, and we did. We need to roll up our sleeves, learn from our mistakes and find a way at home against Tennessee.”
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