STARKVILLE — Get your Fatheads ready because Kendra Grant is back.
Through the first four games of the season, Mississippi State women’s basketball fans had to wave their Fathead, or poster-board sized cutout, of Grant’s face for all of the Bulldogs but her because an injury kept her out of action.
That all changed Tuesday night.
Grant only played six minutes in No. 25 MSU’s 80-46 victory against the University of Louisiana at Monroe before a crowd of 2,954 at Humphrey Coliseum. The positive side of Grant’s appearance is her shooting form is still intact. The senior guard swished her first shot of the season with 10 minutes, 56 seconds remaining to extend the Bulldogs’ lead to 63-28. The jumper was one of two she hit from the left wing. She missed her other two shots from the right wing. Grant also grabbed three rebounds and was the only Bulldog in the team’s 12-player rotation who didn’t play double-digit minutes.
“I am glad to have this one (Grant) back in the game tonight,” MSU coach Vic Schaefer said. “It is good to have her back on the court and see her out there and moving as good as she was.
“She got in and played six minutes and made a couple of jump shots and looked like the old Kendra.”
Grant’s return was the highlight on a night MSU (5-0) played its first game as a ranked team since 2009. The Bulldogs didn’t disappoint in the first half, racing to a 48-13 lead, holding ULM (1-2) to 2-of-18 (11.1 percent) shooting from the field and forcing 19 turnovers. The second half? Schaefer summed it up best when he used the word “ugly” to describe it. Considering it was MSU’s second game in three days, he admitted the performance was about what he expected.
But that didn’t stop the third-year head coach from trying to coax a little more from his players. Schaefer called the last of his allotted timeouts with 7 minutes, 20 seconds remaining and his team leading by 41 points. The message was simple: Get in the ballgame. Schaefer didn’t like what was going on on the court and he wanted it to change. When Schaefer was asked about what those at the game were supposed to take from the fact he had used all of his timeouts with more than seven minutes left in a blowout, he turned to Grant, one of only two players who has been with him for all three years at MSU, and asked her to answer the question.
“Coach talks about he doesn’t like coaching our hearts. He wants to coach Xs and Os,” Grant said. “That was the biggest reason he did that. The first half was really good. The second half we were messing up in a lot of areas, so at that point it was moreso about him coaching our hearts.”
The numbers tell a different side of the story. MSU had a season-high 15 steals and 21 assists and a +8 margin in assist-to-turnovers, its largest of the season. It also won the rebounding margin (44-31) for the fifth-straight game with its biggest cushion. The victory also marked the second time (Mercer) this season the Bulldogs have had 11 players score in a game.
With that many positives, there also were plenty of negatives. ULM outscored MSU 33-32 in the second half thanks to an 11-of-20 (55 percent) shooting effort from the field. The Warhawks played hard until the end and held the Bulldogs without a field goal in the final 6:24. But that couldn’t make up for 32 turnovers, the most MSU has forced this season, and a 31-8 deficit in points off turnovers.
Schaefer also took some of the “blame” for his team’s performance in the second half. He said he didn’t want to press ULM in the second half and that his team also tried to play zone, which it rarely does. The changes caused a disjointed nature to the game.
Sherise Williams paced three MSU players in double figures with 15 points and five rebounds in 16 minutes. Freshman guard Blair Schaefer added 11 points and a team-high six rebounds. The freshman guard also had four assists and a team-best two blocked shots. Ketara Chapel added 10 points and six rebounds.
Blair Schaefer had three of MSU’s eight 3-pointers, including back-to-back treys in the first half off assists from classmate Morgan William (tied for team-high honors with six assists). The former Starkville High School standout started the season in the mix at shooting guard with classmate Kayla Nevitt and sophomore Dominique Dillingham. Even though she is only 5-foot-7, Schaefer uses a bounce in her step to be ready at a moment’s notice to get her shot off. She said she had to develop that shooting stroke if she was going to be able to play Division I basketball.
Vic Schaefer said Blair, who is his daughter, was good from behind the arc, but he believed she turned down a few more shots that she should have taken. He said there are times Blair needs to be selfish and trust her shooting stroke.
Blair Schafer said she is learning to listen to her teammates and be more aggressive on offense.
“It is going to become part of my game because my teammates always tell me, ‘Blair, shoot the ball. That is what you do. Shooters shoot,’ ” Schaefer said. “I second-guess myself a lot and I turn down a lot of shots. They get mad at me when I do that. I think part of it is I don’t want to be selfish. If somebody else is open, I need to give them the ball. Coming from high school, I always used to let it go. I am thinking more, and I guess I have to stop thinking and keep playing my game because that is my game.”
Grant has battled through similar issues in her career. Early on, she had to learn how to be more than a stationary shooter. As she has learned to attack the basket, she also has grown more confident in her ability to score. She showcased that knack for taking over games last season when she played a critical role in MSU’s run to the quarterfinals of the Postseason Women’s National Invitation Tournament.
This season, Grant knows she will have plenty of company in the backcourt. With only one basketball in play at a time, she understands the players who make the most shots and play the best defense are going to get the most playing time. She hopes she will do enough to be on the court so the fans will get plenty of opportunities to wave her Fathead. She considers Tuesday night a good first step.
“I didn’t play a lot of minutes, which is probably best. I am just trying to get my feet back wet,” Grant said. “Just being on the court is a good feeling for me.
“It is a competition. But we use it to our advantage in practice. We realize the team has a lot of depth and we are pretty much fighting for playing time, but we use it to our advantage to make each other better.”
Schaefer believes that level of competition in practice is going to make everyone better. He said the program has come a long way since two years ago when it lacked the depth it has now. The final pieces to the puzzle will be getting senior Martha Alwal and senior guard Savannah Carter back in the rotation.
When asked if fans could anticipate seeing Alwal back on the court at 2 p.m. Saturday when MSU plays at New Orleans, Schaefer wasn’t sure. Alwal, a 6-4 center who was a first-team All-Southeastern Conference performer last year, is the only Bulldog who hasn’t played in a game this season.
“If the Martha Fathead is in New Orleans, they might. We’ll see,” Schaefer said.
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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