With a win over Alabama last night, No. 4 Mississippi State Women’s basketball broke another school record.
MSU (20-0, 6-0 SEC) beat Alabama (14-5, 2-4 SEC) 67-54 and now have nine road wins this season, the most in school history.
On Monday night, MSU beat Ole Miss (13-6, 2-4 SEC) for the sixth consecutive time with a 72-63 victory. That victory gave MSU a 19-0 record, which is the best start in school history and also the longest win streak in MSU school history.
The Bulldogs also experienced their best start in SEC play with a 6-0 record. The win over Alabama gave MSU its fourth 20-win season in a row, with the senior class just three wins away from winning their 100th game.
With all the recent success, pressure has piled up on the Bulldogs.
Point Dominique Dillingham, a senior from Spring, Texas, credited head coach Vic Schaefer for keeping the team grounded in a presser on Wednesday.
“It is not that hard, Coach Schaefer keeps us grounded every day,” Dillingham said. “He reminds us daily that we are not perfect.”
Instead of riding the high of making history, Schaefer was focused on looking ahead and talked at length about what his team needs to do, not what they have done.
“We’re a long way from a finished product and even closer to peaking, which I don’t want to peak right now, so there’s plenty to work on and plenty to get better,” Schaefer said. “The other night we didn’t finish the game (against Ole Miss) right, we missed five layups. There were a lot of things the other night that could have been done better. It’s easy to keep them grounded.”
MSU is one of two undefeated teams in the country. The other is the No. 1 team in the country, the Connecticut Huskies (17-0, 5-0 AAC). UConn is lofty company, a team that has won 90 straight games. While they always had expectations at UConn, this is something different for MSU.
After a program best 28 wins and a trip to Sweet Sixteen last season, Schaefer brought expectations back to Humphrey’s coliseum. This is Schaefer’s fifth season at MSU. The year before Schaefer came to MSU, the Bulldogs went 15-16 and 4-12 in conference play. In his first season MSU went 13-17 overall and 5-11 in conference play.
But in his second season, things started to change. MSU went 22-14 overall but still 5-11 in conference play. However, people were starting to see a glimmer of what could come and now four seasons later those expectation are loud and clear.
Coach Schaefer said he was amazed by how the expectations have changed, but he credited his players for creating that change.
“That has always been my staff expectations as well,” Schaefer said. “We knew we could do it, and we knew that it could be done because there was a blueprint. Once you get the right kids, those kids come in and they’re all-in, the sky is the limit.”
However, the schedule does not stop. MSU will face their biggest competition of the regular season tomorrow against No. 3 South Carolina (16-1, 6-0 SEC). The game will most likely determine the winner of the SEC.
Star guard Victoria Vivians, a junior from Carthage, Mississippi, said road games have prepared them and going into hostile environments does not affect them in SEC play.
“We are used to going on the road and having people against us. Going into another environment won’t affect us at all,” Vivians said. “We just have to go out and play our game.”
Record broken: Women’s basketball team exceeds expectations
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