“Be the One” is a rallying cry for the Mississippi State women’s basketball team this season.

On paper, senior point guard Diamber Johnson figures to be the first option for the Lady Bulldogs.

From there, though, the pecking order becomes unclear. It isn’t because coach Sharon Fanning-Otis’ team doesn’t have choices. In fact, with five other seniors and four freshmen Fanning-Otis expects to make key contributions, the Lady Bulldogs appear to have plenty of players who have the potential to emerge.

MSU will get its first chance to see which players step forward at 2 p.m. today when it plays host to the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith in an exhibition game at Humphrey Coliseum. The game will be the Lady Bulldogs’ only preseason tuneup before they open the regular season at 7 p.m. Friday against Jacksonville State at The Hump.

“I think there have to be two other options,” Fanning-Otis said. “There has to be somebody who is a presence in the post and there has to be another perimeter presence. We can not end up not executing and have Diamber taking a shot that is not a great shot. For us to be a really good basketball team we have to make the extra pass and we have to get the ball inside.”

Fanning-Otis is confident Johnson, who averaged 18.5 points per game in the last four games last season, will be even more assertive and poised seeing major minutes at point guard for the third year in a row. After that, Fanning-Otis likes the mix of 6-foot-5 senior center Catina Bett, 5-11 senior forward Ashley Brown, and 6-4 freshman center Martha Alwal in the post. She also sees a lot of promise in a backcourt group that includes sophomore Katia May and freshman Jerica James at point guard and senior Porsha Porter and freshman Kendra Grant on the wings.

Fanning-Otis said Alwal and Grant likely will be in the starting lineup today, but she expects to sprinkle in versatile players like senior forward Danielle Rector, junior guard Darielle Gaynor, and freshman guard/forward Shamia Robinson, of West Oktibbeha County High School, today to see how the team mixes and matches depending on the situation.

The trick will be to find the right group that allows MSU to dictate tempo on defense and to have scoring options at all of the right places.

Fanning-Otis said the Lady Bulldogs have been addressing that concern in the preseason. She said coaches are stressing to post players they need to work hard to duck into the lane and to post up hard to demand the basketball. She also said post players have to understand their shooting range and move to spots on the floor they can score from when guards penetrate and break defenses down.

On the perimeter, Fanning-Otis said coaches have been working with younger players to help them adjust to a more physical style of play. She feels there can be a balance on the wing with players who can shoot from 3-point range and who also can dribble drive to create shots for themselves and for teammates.

“I feel like we can score from three different positions on the perimeter,” Fanning-Otis said. “It is going to have to be a lot of other people (scoring) besides Diamber.”

Johnson led the team in scoring with 12.8 ppg. last season. The Lady Bulldogs will have to replace the leadership and scoring of guard Mary Kathryn Govero, who was second on the team in scoring at 12.7 ppg. But Porter (9.8 ppg.), Bett (7.4 ppg.), and Brown (6.0 ppg) all showed flashes of being able to contribute more. All three were in their first season of playing in the program in 2010-11, so there was an adjustment period on both ends of the floor. But all three said they feel more confident and comfortable about their roles and their teammates and expect bigger things.

“I have more confidence this year in our team going all of the way to the NCAA tournament,” said Porter, a junior college transfer. “We have more players and we have matured a lot. We are ready for it.

“Last year, I didn’t know what was going on in the SEC. I got to see how it is played and I came to the conclusion that I can do good things in the SEC.”

Said Bett, a transfer from the University of Kentucky, “I think it is very important because you need an inside-outside game. By us being seniors and being post leaders, everybody expects us to contribute more than what we did last year. With the experience we have now, I feel like it is going to be a major part of the team to help out in each and every way possible. We have a big goal this year and we want to contribute as much as we can. We don’t want to end up like we did last year.”

MSU finished 13-17 and 4-12 in the Southeastern Conference last season. It went 5-5 in the final two months and upset Auburn in the first round of the SEC tournament. MSU was last in the SEC in scoring (58.2 ppg) and fourth in the league in scoring defense (59.3 ppg.).

Like Johnson, Porter picked up her game in the final stretch, scoring 11.1 ppg in the final 10 games.

Fanning-Otis wants to see increased production from all of the returning players. She agrees each one understands her role better and is primed to “Be the One” who gets her numbers as part of the family. “Get Your Numbers” and “Family” are two other mantras the Lady Bulldogs will live by this season as they try to recapture the magic that helped the program make its first run to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament in 2009-10.

“We’re getting there,” Fanning-Otis said. “I want to have five players on the floor we can look to to have the confidence to score.”

NOTES: Arkansas-Fort Smith, an NCAA Division II opponent, returns its top-three scorers from last year’s squad that went 21-5 last season. … Today’s game will be video streamed live on Maroon to the Max.

Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.