After a tough road stretch visiting Kentucky and LSU, the Lady Bulldogs return home to host Arkansas Sunday.
On Jan. 15, the Lady Bulldogs took Tennessee down to the wire, but Shekinna Stricklen’s three-pointer with 1:45 to go gave the Lady Vols the lead for good, as they defeated the Lady Bulldogs 63-56. The seesaw battle saw five ties and six lead changes before Tennessee pulled away in the final minutes.
“All I know is that as a team we wanted to win. We just needed to stay together and play basketball, senior forward Robin Porter said. “It didn’t go our way, but that just tells us we need to look at film together to find out what went wrong.”
Porter scored 12 points and pulled down nine rebounds for the Lady Bulldogs against Tennessee. Junior forward Chanel Mokango added 15 points, seven rebounds and seven blocks. Junior guard Alexis Rack also scored 15 points.
“I really wanted to win this game so bad,” Mokango said. “We just made mistakes as a team. We have to work harder in practice. We gave up in the last minutes.”
Tennessee head coach Pat Summit was impressed with the Lady Bulldogs’ effort.
“Coming into this game, we anticipated a real challenge. We have to give Mississippi State a lot of credit. It was a hard-fought game on the part of both teams,” Summit said. “This Mississippi State team is one of Coach [Sharon] Fanning’s best teams. Watching them coming in I thought it could go down to the wire and, obviously, it did.”
On Sunday, the Lady Bulldogs traveled to Lexington, Ky., and defeated the Kentucky Lady Wildcats 52-45.
The Lady Bulldogs trailed at halftime and did not take the lead until Mokango’s jumpshot with 10:57 left in the game. Mokango had 15 points and nine rebounds on the game, while sophomore guard Mary Kathryn Govero and junior guard Armelie Lumanu both reached double figures with 11 points apiece. Off the bench, senior forward Donnisha Tate pulled down a team-high 12 rebounds.
“Bottom line is that we ended up making some shots, and our people stayed focused. They didn’t start out focused, but they stayed focused and continued to work hard and found a way to apply a lot of defensive pressure,” Fanning said.
The Lady Bulldogs should welcome the chance to come home and face a struggling Arkansas club.
“Arkansas is a very athletic team, and they push hard in transition,” Fanning said. “They are very, very quick and they get the ball to the rim, they pressure hard, and we’re going to have to play great basketball.”
Arkansas’ leading scorer is freshman guard Ceira Ricketts, who averages 13.2 points per game. Senior forward Whitney Jones averages 7.3 rebounds per game.
The crowds for the last two home games have been some of the largest and most rowdy in MSU history. Fanning said she credits the crowd for being the difference in the win over Ole Miss, and a large factor in the close game with Tennessee as well.
“I was so proud to see a great crowd at the Tennessee game, and we fell short. I was very disappointed for our crowd that we couldn’t pull that one out. I feel like we’re playing harder, and we’re competitive,” Fanning said. “We really need the fans there. We don’t need it to be a once in a while thing, because we need every one of these basketball games to get to the NCAA Tournament, and I know that they are going to make a difference.”