STARKVILLE — Expectations are nothing new at Mississippi State this year.
Before the 2014 season started, Dan Mullen and the MSU football team were besieged with questions about how they were going to handle the expectations they faced this season.
So far, so good on that front.
Vic Schaefer hopes his team will handle the expectations that it will face as it prepares for the 2014-15 season. A 22-14 record that included a trip to the quarterfinals of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament in front of growing crowds at Humphrey Coliseum built the excitement for Schaefer’s third season as coach in Starkville. The return of five players who started 20-plus games, including nearly 90 percent of the offensive production from a squad that set the school record for points in a season, and the addition of another nationally ranked recruiting class, which features Victoria Vivians, the state of Mississippi’s all-time leading scorer, adds to the anticipation everyone feels.
Schaefer said the Bulldogs, who will hold their first practice of the season at 4 p.m. today, won’t back down from those expectations.
“I am excited about our team,” Schaefer said. “It’s always good to have four starters back, which basically we do. We lost two really good kids, in Candace (Foster) and Katia (May), but when you have four starters back, four seniors on your team, and a top-20 recruiting class, you have to be excited about that.”
MSU returns its top five scorers, including two-time All-SEC and SEC co-Defensive Player of the Year Martha Alwal. The Worthington, Minnesota, native paced MSU with 14.9 points and 8.8 rebounds per game. She enters her senior year as the Southeastern Conference’s active career leader in blocked shots (257) and double-doubles (31).
Senior guard Kendra Grant also will look for a strong finish to her career after scoring at an 11.4 clip as a junior. The Richland native needs 39 points to reach 1,000 for her career after a stellar postseason run that saw her average 13.8 ppg. in the WNIT.
Seniors Jerica James and Savannah Carter also return. James is the team’s returning leader in assists (2.8 assists per game), while Carter was one of the SEC’s leaders in steals with 2.2 game.
The freshman class includes Vivians, a Parade All-American, All-State selection Blair Schaefer, who is the daughter of Vic Schaefer, Kayla Nevitt, LaKaris Salter, and Morgan William.
Now that MSU is a year older and deeper, here are four things to watch for to see if the Bulldogs can realize the expectations they set for themselves this season:
n Can MSU shoulder the weight of being ranked and climbing the ladder in the SEC?: If his team was going to walk through an airport today, Schaefer feels it would look a lot more like a team that plays in the SEC than the one he inherited did nearly three years ago. But now that they could be considered “the hunted,” Schaefer knows the Bulldogs won’t sneak up on anybody and likely will be picked to finish at least in the top half, if not higher, of the SEC.
“I think we have a chance to be very good,” Schaefer said. “If you don’t look like (a SEC team), chances are you aren’t one. In this league, you better have some size and some kids who like they can take a beating’ and give a beatin’. After a year or two, I think we are in that position. Not only have we developed that with the kids we inherited, but we also have recruited it.”
n How good can Alwal be?: Alwal has blossomed in the past two seasons, but she still has so much room for improvement, according to Schaefer. At 6-foot-4, Alwal will benefit from having another year to go against 6-5 sophomore center Chinwe Okorie, who redshirted last season after dealing with NCAA eligibility issues, in practice. With so many other weapons, especially on the perimeter, Alwal could face a lot of one-on-one coverage on defense, which could help her be more efficient.
“All I do is complain about Martha, but she is first-team All-SEC and defensive player of the year,” Schaefer said. “To me, she is not close to where she could be. I think she has so much room to grow and improve. … I think she has leaps and bounds she can make.”
n How good can Vivians be?: Vivians, a 6-1 forward from Scott Central High School, would have finished her prep career as the nation’s all-time leading scorer if the National Federation of State High Schools recognized the totals she put up as an eighth-grader playing for the high school varsity team. As it stands, Vivians finished as the second-leading scorer with 5,172 points. Schaefer feels Vivians will be able to score from the outside or the inside and be a difficult matchup regardless where she plays.
“She can be as good as she wants to be,” Schaefer said. “She has the frame, the make-up as a competitor. She is a big, physical kid. She is a big guard who can stretch you, shoot it, go off the bounce, finish with contact. She is the total package. She is still young. She is going to be learning the game, but, like I have said, she is going to learn to enjoy the pass that leads to the basket as much as her having to score the baskets all her career.”
n Who will be the team leader?: MSU went 4-0 on its trip to Belgium and France in August. Three of the games were blowouts, but one was a knockdown, drag-out battle that left Schaefer impressed with the way his players embraced the physicality of the game. Vivians and sophomore Breanna Richardson tied for the team lead in scoring, but Schaefer said he isn’t sure if one player earned the title of “leader” for the squad. That isn’t a bad thing, though, because he said he likes the fact that so many players on this season’s team have taken game-winning shots and are comfortable in that role. His job will be to mesh those talents together.
“I may have a problem with playing time early, trying to get everybody in the mix,” Schaefer said. “As they say, the cream will rise to the top once you compete in practice.”
Fans can meet Schaefer’s squad, as well as Rick Ray’s MSU men’s basketball team, during the fourth-annual Maroon Madness at 7 p.m. Friday in downtown Starkville.
MSU will play host to Arkansas-Fort Smith on Nov. 9 in an exhibition game. It will kick off the season at 8 p.m. Nov. 14 against Mercer in the opening round of the Preseason WNIT 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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