Vic Schaefer and the Mississippi State women’s basketball team have built expectations going into this season.
Going into his fifth year, Schaefer will be coaching his final season with his first batch of recruits. His first class, which was headlined by senior Dominique Dillingham, has been the building block of his program over the past couple seasons.
This senior class is 77-29 over the last three years and coach Schaefer said he wants to get that number to 100, which would take an extremely impressive 23-win season.
“I can’t believe they are seniors,” Schaefer said. “They believed in us, they trusted us and believed in the vision we talked about in recruiting.”
That class and the classes after it have changed expectations for MSU. A prime example of this is the lack of non-conference home games on their schedule. MSU only plays three of their 15 non-conference games in the Hump. According to Coach Schaefer, they have struggled to get people to agree to play in the Hump where as he puts it, 7,000 sounds like 70,000.
“Four years ago, everybody and their dog wanted to come in here and play,” Schaefer said. “If there is ever a team that I have had, this team ought to be able to go on the road and play some good people. They have had their fill of three name directional schools and winning by 50, they want to play somebody.”
It is not only other teams that think MSU will be great. MSU is ranked high once again to start off the season in the polls. They are ranked 11th in the USA Today Coaches Poll and will not be sneaking up on anyone. Normally for athletics at a school like MSU, they are seen as an underdog. However, this year for women’s basketball, that won’t be the case. Dillingham, who is from Spring, Texas, said the expectations are not new because they have high ones for themselves.
“We have always had expectations for ourselves,” Dillingham said. “It is hard to tune out but our coaches keep us grounded and remind us every day that we could do better. It’s all about winning a national championship.”
Individually, one player has always stuck out for MSU: junior guard Victoria Vivians. Vivians, who is from Carthage, Mississippi, was a 5-star recruit coming out of high school. In her first two years she has accumulated a number of awards.
Multiple awards span her first two seasons here, including All-American honorable mentions, All-SEC first team honors, SEC All-Freshman team and freshman All-American honors. She is also the back-to-back CSpire Gillom Trophy Winner, which is awarded to the best female college basketball player in Mississippi.
She has been awarded numerous others, but if you asked Vivians, she could not name anything she has won. At MSU media day, Vivians sounded a lot like former Bulldog Football player Dak Prescott when he was asked about accolades.
“I cannot tell you any award I have gotten,” Vivians said. “It doesn’t really matter until after I retire from basketball.”
The women’s team will have their opening exhibition match against The University of Arkansas-Fort Smith Friday in the Hump. They will face Villanova and officially start their season on Thursday, Nov. 10.
