STARKVILLE — Style points haven’t been important to the 2015-16 Mississippi State women’s basketball team.
All season, MSU coach Vic Schaefer has preached about the importance of defense and how the Bulldogs work through their challenges on offense by playing a “grind-it-out” brand of ball.
The Bulldogs’ plan didn’t change on a history-making Friday afternoon. In fact, the first NCAA tournament women’s basketball game at Humphrey Coliseum played out a lot like the Bulldogs’ first 33 games of the season.
Victoria Vivians scored a game-high 19 points and grabbed seven rebounds, and Chinwe Okorie had 12 points and nine rebounds to help No. 5 seed MSU beat No. 12 seed Chattanooga 60-50 before a crowd of 5,115 in the first round of the NCAA tournament ‘s Bridgeport Regional at Humphrey Coliseum.
“This is who we are,” Schaefer said. “We are not going to morph into some 80- or 90-point offensive team. It starts on the defensive end for us. We have got to guard.”
The win helped MSU (27-7) match the program record for wins in a season set in 2014-15, and secured a matchup against No. 5 seed Michigan State at 1:30 p.m. Sunday (ESPN2) at Humphrey Coliseum. Michigan State (25-8) defeated Belmont (24-9) 74-60 behind a game-high 27 points from Aerial Powers.
The winner of Sunday’s game will advance to the Sweet 16 in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
MSU advanced thanks to a defense that limited Chattanooga to 39.2-percent shooting (20 of 51 from the field). It was the ninth time Chattanooga (24-7) shot less than 40 percent from the field this season. The Bulldogs also forced 19 turnovers and had a 21-10 edge in points off turnovers.
“Victoria gets two or three long rebounds where she was able to go the length of the floor and finish, and that comes off our defense,” Schaefer said. “I think all six of our fast-break points were her layups, so it is who we are. We embrace it, and we go to work and realize this is what we do every day.”
Earlier this week, Belmont coach Cameron Newbauer said the MSU-Chattanooga game could be played in the 40s because of the Mocs’ “methodical” style and the Bulldogs’ brand of defense. Newbauer said Chattanooga’s patience and use of ball screens on offense were going to test MSU’s defense in what he expected to be a very competitive game.
Newbauer’s analysis was spot on for 30 of the 40 minutes. The exception was the second quarter in which MSU outscored Chattanooga 18-5 to help it overcome a slow start and build a 29-21 halftime lead it didn’t relinquish.
“We had too many opportunities where we had what I thought was a quality shot and we didn’t take it,” Chattanooga coach Jim Foster said of what happened to his team in the second quarter. “When you’re playing against teams with this kind of quickness, when you get that opportunity you can’t be hesitant. From the 3-point line, I thought we had a couple of players who were a little hesitant. Live and learn.”
Jasmine Joyner, who is from Southaven, was called for her second foul at the 7-minute, 13-second mark in the first quarter and didn’t play the remainder of the first half. MSU capitalized on the absence of the nation’s leading shot blocker (4.03 per game) and the Mocs’ leading scorer (12.9 points per game) with an 18-3 run in the final 8:01 of the second quarter.
“I felt like I let my team down,” said Joyner, who finished with a team-high 17 points. “When I came in in the second half, I knew I had to pick up my game up and try and make up for it.”
The Bulldogs regained their footing after sophomore point guard Morgan William, who picked up two early fouls, returned to the game with 7:52 to go in the first half. LaKaris Salter had an offensive rebound putback, an assist on a layup by Vivians, and a 3-pointer that gave the Bulldogs the lead for good.
“Like coach always says, be ready,” Salter said. “That was my main focus in our practices this week. I rarely played offense. I was on defense a lot, so I kind of figured defense was going to be a key for this game, and it really was. With me coming off the bench, I knew my main thing was to try to defend and do a better job of defending and let the scoring come to me, which it did.”
Joyner returned with a vengeance in the third quarter, scoring 11 points — all on jump shots — to help the Mocs cut the Bulldogs’ biggest lead of 12 down to two.
“(Joyner) took over the game when they made their run,” Schaefer said. “She is a great player. She is really good.”
MSU used Okorie, Teaira McCowan, and Sherise Williams to try to defend Joyner in that stretch.
“I was just talking to myself about trying to help my team out,” Joyner said. “I knew they were overplaying, and I knew it was going to be hard for me to post up, so I have been practicing shooting. It showed off a lot.”
Chattanooga had one chance to tie or take the lead in the third quarter, but Queen Alford missed a 3-pointer.
Vivians helped deliver the daggers with back-to-back 3-pointers late in the third quarter to squelch the Mocs’ momentum and push MSU’s lead back to 46-40 with 10 minutes remaining.
“She had a blip,” Foster said. “A player that has got that much freedom and is going to get that many opportunities, there is going to be a blip. We made, I thought, two mistakes in the framework of that, and we hadn’t made them. We made her earn (most of her points). We handed those to her. She is talented.”
In the fourth quarter, Chattanooga cut the deficit to 49-46 on two free throws by Joyner with 5:57 remaining. But MSU’s defense limited Chattanooga to 1-of-8 shooting down the stretch — 3 of 13 for the fourth quarter — to help it pull away. That defense and a 44-29 rebounding edge, which helped the Bulldogs earn a 34-24 edge in points in the paint, were too much for the Mocs to overcome.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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