LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Blair Schaefer is doing her best to impersonate Dominique Dillingham.
No other player on the Mississippi State women’s basketball team is in a better position to fill the void left by the injured Dillingham than Schaefer, the junior guard who also is the daughter of head coach Vic Schaefer.
Without their defensive leader and top charge taker, Schaefer has accepted the challenge of filling minutes in the backcourt. Armed with a blue wrap on her left shoulder, Schaefer is doing her best to bring defensive intensity as well as her usual willingness to take a charge to the court. Factor in an ability to knock down a clutch jump shot or two and you have a mix Dillingham would love.
That mixture paid dividends at the right time Tuesday night.
Schaefer hit a key 3-pointer in a game-turning run in the fourth quarter, and Victoria Vivians had 10 of her team-high 17 points in the final 6 minutes, 44 seconds to lead No. 5 MSU to a 58-44 victory against Little Rock before a crowd of 1,534 at the Jack Stephens Center.
“Thinking of myself as a defensive player is kind of crazy because in my freshman year that was my downfall,” said Schaefer, who is seeing more minutes as Dillingham recovers from knee surgery. “Learning from Dom(inique) has really helped me. In practice, I have always worked hard, but I don’t think I ever realized what could come from working hard on defense. Over the years, getting repetition on skills and on our defensive drills every day that (coach Schaefer) has implanted in me, now I just do it.”
Schaefer provided a defensive presence on a night the Bulldogs struggled to find a rhythm. She took a charge in the second quarter to help MSU erase its largest deficit. Her willingness to sacrifice her body might have played a part in Vivians’ decision to step in and take a charge at the end of the quarter. The Bulldogs used that energy to close the quarter on a 7-2 run and take a 25-24 lead.
But MSU (10-0) wasn’t able to sustain that momentum until the fourth quarter, when Vivians returned to the game with more energy and was active on both ends of the floor. As a result, the junior guard was able to get out in transition and create scoring opportunities with her pull-up jump shot.
“At the beginning of the game, I was a little winded,” Vivians said. “I was letting not being able to breathe out there get into my head and not play defense. I wasn’t, I guess, taking good shots, and I was making mental mistakes.
“But at the end I played a lot better. I came in a lot more focused and I just tried to do what coach told me to do.”
Schaefer pitched in, too, with a 3-pointer that gave MSU a 48-40 lead with 4 minutes, 50 seconds remaining. Schaefer was 3 of 4 from the field (3 of 3 from 3-point range) and tied her career-high with 12 points in 24 minutes.
More importantly, Schaefer helped spearhead a more intense effort on defense in the second half. The Bulldogs used that added aggressiveness to force the Trojans (5-5) into 12 of their season-high 21 turnovers in the second half.
“Now that Dom is out, I think we have all tried to be a defensive team,” Schaefer said. “I think I am just trying to focus on what our team needs. Tonight it just worked for us. The hard work helped us in a lot of ways.”
Coach Schaefer was disappointed in the Bulldogs’ focus defensively in the first half. He also wasn’t pleased with his team’s offense in the first 20 minutes, but he said he was happy to see Vivians bounce back after he said she had “kind of a down first half.”
“We got her some good looks close, and we posted her up a couple of times,” Schaefer said. “You can see it when she is coming down the floor and she has that look in her eye and it is one-on-one, or even one-on-two, and she can get to her spot, there are not very many people who can do that, and do it with the confidence she does it with.
“She is just a confident kid. If I can get her like that to start a game and to play like that for a whole game, she is everything everybody thinks she is. I have got to get her playing harder defensively, and she did that in the second half. I am proud of her for bouncing back. I was hard on her at halftime, but Torri can take it. She is a pro.”
Coach Schaefer also was proud of Blair for playing hard on both ends of the floor and for giving the Bulldogs “what we needed on that end defensively.”
“I thought our second half defensive effort was much, much better,” Schaefer said. “I t was so much better than the first half. Part of that is personnel and part of it is you’re wearing people out and you’re pressing them.”
Little Rock coach Joe Foley praised MSU’s defense for helping to force his team into so many mistakes. He feels the Bulldogs can be an even better defensive team when Dillingham returns from knee surgery. Dillingham is regarded as the team’s best defensive player and as someone who sets the tone with aggressive play and a willingness to take a charge.
“When they get (Dillingham) back, I think they’re really tough,” Foley said. “I think she is a pretty good piece they are missing. They are good, but when you add her from what I have seen on film, I think they get even more depth and get even better. To me, they are a Final Four team.”
Little Rock built its biggest lead, 17-12, on a jump shot by Ronjanae DeGray (career-high 18 points) with six minutes left in the second quarter. The basket came following an offensive rebound by Raeyana DeGray. The possession epitomized a first half in which the Trojans were the aggressors and took the action to the Bulldogs. Little Rock was 6 of 10 from the field in the second quarter, and shot 11 of 24 (45.8 percent) in the first 20 minutes.
MSU answered with a 6-0 sparked by Schaefer, who took a charge and hit two free throws. Morgan William added a step-back jumper — the same one she used to beat Ole Miss in Oxford — to give MSU an 18-17 lead. Little Rock responded with a 5-0 run, but Chinwe Okorie added two baskets in the paint after Vivians took a charge to take a 25-24 halftime lead.
Little Rock was picked second in the Sun Belt Conference preseason poll. It entered the game having allowed 46 points per game in its four-game winning streak (52.6 ppg. overall).
Little Rock also had allowed only one opponent to score more points than the team’s season average. Opponents of the Trojans had been averaging 13 fewer points than they usually score.
MSU came in averaging 80.7 ppg, so it fell more than 21 points shy of its goal. But that didn’t matter because the Bulldogs held the Trojans 12.4 points below its defensive average of 56.4 ppg. Little Rock’s 44 points were one shy of MSU’s season-low in an 87-43 victory against Maine on Nov. 12.
“I thought our execution down the stretch was outstanding,” Schaefer said. “We really got the ball inside to Torri and we made some really good decisions and some great reads and we just went inside with our big guards.
“I thought our defense really made some good decisions. Torri got out in transition in the fourth quarter and made some really good decisions and made some big shots in transition. There is nobody better in the country like her in the open floor when she can do that.”
MSU will face SMU at 10 p.m. Friday in the first round of the Women of Troy Classic in Los Angeles. It will play Grambling State or USC at 1 or 3 p.m. Sunday.
MSU will close the non-conference season and 2016 with games against Alabama State (7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 20) and Northwestern State (7 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 28) at Humphrey Coliseum.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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