So you want to be a coach?
Howard White Jr. will tell you there are plenty of perks. The Mississippi University for Women’s women’s basketball coach has been working with student-athletes for more than 20 years, so he has seen the benefits from impacting the lives of his players.
There are other times, though, when his job can be a little trying.
But as challenging as it was for White Jr. to find a spark for his team Saturday, The W somehow found a way to earn a 58-56 victory against LSU-Shreveport at Pohl Gymnasium.
“It can be frustrating, but you have to keep motivating them, keep them playing defensively and playing hard,” White Jr. said. “Playing hard will make up for a lot of things.”
Former West Point High School standout Qiayon Bailey (game-high 21 points) scored on a drive with 1 minute, 50 seconds remaining to give the Owls (4-1) a 55-53 lead. Starlandria Walton pushed the tempo and scored on a layup to kick the lead to 57-53.
Remember, though, nothing came easily on this day.
White Jr. reminded his players not to let point guard Shaniqua Tobias shoot a 3-pointer by yelling, “Don’t let her shoot it,” but the Owls didn’t respond and gave Tobias enough room at the top of the key to hit the triple to cut the deficit to 57-56 with 1:08 remaining.
Rokila Wallace (15 points) missed a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession, which allowed the Pilots to call their final timeout with 36 seconds to go. With seven seconds on the shot clock, Doylin Onikoyi was fouled on a baseline drive with 18.4 seconds to play. Onikoyi missed both free throws and the Pilots were forced to foul twice to put the Owls on the free-throw line. Wallace made 1 of 2 free throws, but Keiara Williams missed 3-pointer to help the Owls survive.
“We are learning how we need to play and how to close out ballgames,” White Jr. said. “That was a tough team. They were missing a couple of players, but that is not an excuse. You still have to come to play. We missed 20 layups, and if we make those layups it is a different ballgame.”
White Jr. wasn’t pleased with his team’s focus in its final game before the holiday break. He also didn’t care for the fact the Owls missed at least 20 shots in the paint and allowed the Pilots (1-3), who had only six players dressed out, be the aggressors. At one point in the first quarter, White looked at The W men’s basketball coach Brian Merkel, who was sitting at the scorer’s table, and said, “They looked down there and saw they only had six people.”
Despite only having six, LSU-Shreveport controlled the tempo and had four of its five players score in double figures. The stage was set in the first quarter when White Jr. grabbed his dry erase board and called a 30-second timeout. He never used it because he spent the entire timeout trying to motivate his players.
White Jr. continued to motivate in the second quarter. He paced the sidelines and clapped and yelled, “Keep working White. Keep working White.” The message seemed to work as The turned a 12-2 deficit into a 27-15 lead in the second quarter. But the energy level waned just as quickly as it surged, which allowed the Pilots to close the deficit to 28-26 at halftime.
The W trailed by as many as six points in the third quarter before closing the gap in the fourth quarter. For most of the final 10 minutes, the Owls couldn’t make one more play to take control, which added to the frustration for White Jr.
Still, he joked with his players after the game that they couldn’t come back fatter following Thanksgiving break and had to work to stay in shape to be ready for the next practice Saturday. The W will take on Wesleyan College at 2 p.m. Sunday. On Saturday night, though, White Jr. planned to kick up his feet and let out a sigh of relief.
“I will go home and kick out and say, ‘How in the world did we pull that one off?” White Jr. said. “I think when I told them, ‘If you don’t win this ballgame, we are practicing Monday and Tuesday before you go home, I think that helped.’ ”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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