History will be made this season.
The only question is will you be there to witness it?
A year ago, thousands of Mississippi State and women’s basketball fans turned out to watch the best MSU women’s basketball season in program history. With 27 victories (11 in the Southeastern Conference), the Bulldogs set a record for wins in a season and in the SEC. The success earned MSU a top-four finish in the SEC regular-season standings and a return trip to the NCAA tournament.
A loss to Duke in the second round in Durham, North Carolina, only heightened the expectations for a 2015-16 season that many believed in March had the promise to be the best season in the history of the program.
Get ready because it will be.
MSU coach Vic Schaefer might not want to believe it or have the weight of those expectations placed on the shoulders of his players, but there is no denying this year’s team has the potential to be the best to wear the Maroon and White. Better individual players — LaToya Thomas and Tan White — might have played in Starkville, but it is hard to find a better MSU team than the one Schaefer and his staff have assembled this season.
You have to go back to 1999-2000 and 2009-10 to find teams that can challenge for the honor of the program’s best squad. In 2000, coach Sharon Fanning’s team led by Thomas, Cynthia Hall, Jennifer Fambrough, Angela Harris, and Nitra Perry lost to Tennessee in the title game of the SEC tournament in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament. In 2010, the Bulldogs played their best basketball in the NCAA tournament in victories against Middle Tennessee State and Ohio State. That team featured the high-scoring exploits of Alexis Rack, imports Armelie Lumanu and Chanel Mokango, and role players like Mary Kathryn Govero, Diamber Johnson, and Tysheka Grimes and made the program’s first trip to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.
This year’s team is deeper, more athletic, and more talented than both of those teams. Your first official chance to see the team will come at 6 tonight in a Maroon-White scrimmage at Humphrey Coliseum. The event will be a dress rehearsal for the team’s only exhibition game of the season against Mississippi College at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10. MSU will open the season at 5:15 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, against Samford at Humphrey Coliseum.
While MSU might not sell out its season opener, which will be part of a doubleheader with the men’s basketball team (vs. Eastern Washington at 8 p.m.), it will feature a crowd of 2,465 season ticket holders, which is a school-record total that is still growing. That number has grown by more than 200 thanks to a record-setting 2014-15 season that saw 67,598 fans attend 18 games at Humphrey Coliseum. That total included a record crowd of 7,326 that watched MSU’s 55-47 victory against Ole Miss. That crowd is the largest to watch a women’s college basketball game in the state of Mississippi.
For the season, MSU’s season attendance jumped 1,435 from 2013-14 to a program-record 3,755. It was the fourth-highest increase in the nation, and second only to South Carolina in the SEC.
Those numbers will be shattered this season. Get a pen. Mark down these times and dates: 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24, against South Carolina and 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28, against Tennessee. Don’t watch the games on television. Be part of a sell-out crowd at Humphrey Coliseum.
If you think it’s funny to think the MSU women’s basketball team might sell out Humphrey Coliseum, you didn’t attend one of the team’s games last season. If you did, you saw the undeniable appeal of Dominique Dillingham throwing her body in front of players and on the floor, you saw the spectacular promise of Victoria Vivians, you saw the quickness and play-making ability of Morgan William. More importantly, you saw a team that had the “it” factor, a chemistry that mixed talented individual pieces into a formidable opponent, one that didn’t quit and scratched and clawed for everything it achieved.
This year’s team will be better.
The addition of a talented freshman class that includes Jazmine Spears, who is from New Albany High School, and Jazzmun Holmes, who is from Harrison Central High, along with Parade All-America center Teaira McCowan and center Zion Campbell will give MSU depth at every position and a roster that has the size and weapons to compete against SEC powers like South Carolina and Tennessee.
That’s part of the reason MSU was picked third in the SEC preseason poll. That’s part of the reason why MSU has been picked No. 6 and No. 8 in preseason rankings. The other part of the equation has to do with the Bulldogs’ potential. It’s hard to deny all of the Bulldogs have room to grow into even better players. Schaefer has touted the hard work of Breanna Richardson, Vivians, Ketara Chapel, LaKaris Salter — frankly all of his players — in preseason interviews. He has talked about the problems he will face when he has to decide which players are on the court and for how long.
Those are good dilemmas for coaches to have.
The missing piece is the support. MSU very well could have beaten Duke last season if that game had been played in Starkville. That game likely would have attracted at least 7,000 fans, and it could have been the program’s first sellout.
This season, MSU needs even more fan support so it can capitalize on the energy of a home-court advantage and build a resume that impresses the NCAA tournament selection committee. As much as that committee says it doesn’t factor in attendance in awarding teams the chance to play host to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament, it would be impossible not to award MSU its first shot to host the event if it averages 5,000 or more fans, or if there is the possibility MSU will sell out Humphrey Coliseum.
That’s why every game, especially the games against South Carolina and Tennessee, are so important. MSU has to prove it can live up to the expectations. MSU fans have to prove they can get behind this team just as much as they have gotten behind Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs and John Cohen’s Bulldogs.
This season is the perfect time. You only will get to see the best team in MSU women’s basketball history. But that will only hold true until the 2016-17 team hits the court.
Adam Minichino is sports editor of The Dispatch. You can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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