STARKVILLE — Vic Schaefer’s body language said it all.
His comments following the No. 9 Mississippi State women’s basketball team’s 82-54 victory against Tennessee State only verified that the MSU coach wasn’t pleased with what he saw Sunday afternoon at Humphrey Coliseum.
“I am probably most disappointed in myself. Obviously I didn’t have our team ready to play today,” Schaefer said. “We did not play well. We did not play with any energy, any effort. (There was) no enthusiasm on the floor. We are not a very well-coached team in the talking department. We don’t communicate well when we step between the lines. We like to talk off the floor, but we just don’t communicate on the floor. Obviously I am not doing a really good job convincing them that that is important.”
Victoria Vivians had 19 or her 22 points in the second half as MSU (6-1) pulled away after leading 35-34 at halftime. The Lady Tigers (4-4), who were picked fifth in the Ohio Valley Conference preseason poll, shot 50 percent in the first half and by far were the more aggressive and cohesive team.
The second half was a different story, though, as the Bulldogs forced the Lady Tigers to commit 18 of their 30 turnovers. Tennessee State was 5 of 25 from the field in the final 20 minutes.
Junior forward Breanna Richardson came off the bench and scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds (six offensive). Junior center Chinwe Okorie added 12 points and a season-high 13 rebounds in a season-high 26 minutes. Dominique Dillingham and Blair Schaefer added nine points.
Dillingham played point guard for long stretches with Morgan William not at 100 percent. Schaefer said after the game that his sophomore point guard is battling shin issues.
But Schaefer wasn’t going to use William’s limited play (nine minutes) as an excuse on an afternoon his team committed 23 turnovers and was 8 of 22 (36.4 percent) from the field in the second quarter.
MSU’s saving grace was its ability to draw offensive fouls. Twelve of Tennessee State’s turnovers came as a result of charges or offensive fouls. Blair Schaefer drew five of the charges, while Dillingham took four. Richardson drew applause from coach Schaefer late in the third quarter when she took a charge.
“Way to go,” Schaefer said as he clapped in front of the team’s bench.
That was one of the few highlights on an afternoon Schaefer wanted more from his players. He was especially annoyed late in the fourth quarter when his players didn’t get on the floor for a loose ball. That sequence was part of his frustration after the game. At one point during an answer, he turned and looked at Vivians, Richardson, and Okorie to accentuate his point.
“It’s a disappointing day,” Schaefer said. “I am not very happy. I am disappointed. It is all my fault. It all rests on these shoulders, and I will wear it. I will do better next time.”
Schaefer read a laundry list of 14 defensive items he discussed with his players at halftime. Some — like getting back on defense — are things he said he and his coaches will have to work on with younger players to get them to have a better understanding of where they need to be. Others — like “playing soft and at half-speed” — are things that irritate Schaefer the most because he wants his teams to play with intensity and effort. For a good part of the game Sunday, Schaefer didn’t see enough of those intangibles.
“That is probably the most I have written down in a long time,” Schaefer said. “You saw it late in the game. We got a loose ball on the floor and we just let somebody take it from us or we don’t get on the floor after it. That is not acceptable. I won’t accept that, and I will deal with it Tuesday when we go back to practicing. There is no room on our team for people that don’t play hard. I don’t care who we are playing, the people that paid their admission deserved a better showing than we gave them. I am disappointed.”
Schaefer said it was surprising he would have to stress those points and say those things to his players seven games into the season. The performance came almost four days after a 53-47 loss to No. 6 Texas in Austin, Texas. Schaefer lamented poor defense on out-of-bounds plays and an 11-of-20 effort from the free-throw line as factors that prevented the Bulldogs from winning the ranked matchup on a night they didn’t play well. He cautioned his players that another effort like the one they delivered Sunday against Louisiana Tech next weekend in Ruston, Louisiana, will result in a loss.
“I just didn’t think we would play this way,” said Schaefer, who added that the No. 2 thing he wrote on the dry erase board in the team’s locker room was “focus.” “It is my fault. I obviously didn’t instill in them that no matter who we’re playing or when we’re playing there is a way we have to play and represent. I thought the first half we were awful. We didn’t represent anything about what we’re about. We take great pride in how hard we play and loose balls on the floor.
“You’re honoring the game. You’re honoring the skills God has blessed you with. Letting somebody take the ball from you and then there is a loose ball on the floor in the corner and you are just looking at them, and I won’t tolerate it.”
Richardson provided a spark, going 4 of 12 from the field and 6 of 7 from the free-throw line. She attacked the basket in 21 minutes and made numerous plays at the rim and on offensive rebounds, but she agreed with Schaefer that the Bulldogs’ play wasn’t what it should have been.
“I don’t think we played hard,” Richardson said. “Coach got into us at halftime. I think we stepped it up just a little bit, enough to get the victory, but I still don’t think we played hard enough. I think we had spurts of good times, like he said, when we got on the floor, but, overall, it was just an ugly win.”
Vivians also gave MSU a lift in the second half, going 6 of 10 from the field and 6 of 6 from the free-throw line. She also attacked the basket and drew praise from Schaefer for taking a charge. She knows, too, that MSU needs to play much better as it moves closer to the start of the Southeastern Conference season.
“I think it was a lack of effort for certain people,” Vivians said when asked about the team’s turnovers. “I don’t say the whole team just played bad. It was just certain people.”
Said Richardson, “I just think we lost focus. We didn’t have the right mind-set. We didn’t play hard. It shows when we don’t play as hard as we are expected to play.”
MSU will play Louisiana Tech at 3 p.m. Sunday in Ruston, Louisiana. It will return home to play host to Southern Mississippi at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16, at Humphrey Coliseum.
n Ole Miss 80, Arkansas-Pine Bluff 45: At Oxford, Shandricka Sessom scored a career-high 28 points Sunday to lead the Rebels (5-3) to their fourth-straight win.
“I just came out to play,” Sessom said. “I wasn’t thinking about anything except coming to play.”
Sessom was 6 of 12 from 3-point range. She has reached double figures in each of her last nine games dating back to last season.
Ole Miss led by 16 points at halftime and quickly turned that lead into a 31-point cushion. It converted 23 turnovers by Arkansas-Pine Bluff (3-5) into 35 points.
“It’s a really good win,” Ole Miss coach Matt Insell said. “I’m really happy for our basketball team and the growth we’ve had over the last two or three weeks. We’re really starting to come together and getting better each and every game. A lot of players got to play a lot of minutes for us today, and that’s really good. We got four freshmen in the game as you saw in the fourth quarter and those are very important minutes for them and their growth in our basketball team.”
Ole Miss will play Southern Mississippi at 4 p.m. Saturday in Hattiesburg.
n Alabama 97, Alcorn State 50: At Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Quanetria Bolton had 14 points and 10 rebounds to help the Crimson Tide improve to 7-1.
Hannah Cook and C’Coriea Foy had 14 points, while Nikki Hegstetter added 13, Karyla Middlebrook had 12, and Breanna Hayden had 10.
“I love this team and how they respond,” Alabama coach Kristy Curry said. “I asked them two days ago about the 1 percent rule. If every day we give 1 percent more energy, effort in what we are doing throughout the month, get 1 percent better every day, we will be prepared for January. This team is on a mission. This team is excited and motivated.”
Alabama will play host to Georgetown at noon Saturday (SEC Network) at Foster Auditorium.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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