It was not too long ago that the Mississippi State women’s basketball program floundered at the bottom of the SEC on a yearly basis. In fact, in the previous two years before current Head Coach Vic Schaefer’s arrival at Mississippi State, the Bulldogs finished below .500 and in the bottom three of the conference each year. However, since the hiring of Schaefer, the program has seen a dramatic improvement in its on-the-court performance as well as made great strides in the goal of recruiting some good, young talent to help build for sustained future success.
Coach Schaefer’s dubbed nickname “The Secretary of Defense” may be a comical way of describing the tough-nosed coach, but it accurately depicts what he plans to get out of his team on the basketball court. He wants his basketball team to be sound on the defensive end, while at the same time being aggressive in attacking the rim on the offensive end. The defense will be the prohibitive factor in creating the team’s offense, if the team is playing up to its usual standard.  
Last season’s squad took to Coach Schaefer’s overall message kindly, and the stats back this up as well. They finished last season with an opponent field goal percentage of 44 percent and an opponent three point percentage of roughly 34 percent for the season. Along with this, the Bulldogs were able to finish with a positive turnover margin and average over 13 assists for the campaign. These positive attributes all led to the team gaining nine more wins then it did during Schaefer’s first season in Starkville, and its 22-14 record was good enough to earn it a birth in the 2014 Women’s National Invitational tournament, where they were able to make it to the quarterfinals.  
One player in particular that stood out for the Bulldogs last season was Martha Alwal. She finished the season averaging 14.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and 2.69 blocks, which was good enough to garner her First Team All-SEC honors. She also finished as the conference’s co-defensive player of the year, sharing the award with Texas A&M’s Jordan Jones. Coming into this season, she has already been named Preseason All-SEC, and if her play continues to trend upward she might even make another leap before the end of the season.  
This season’s squad is a team that sets up nicely to be competitive this season as well as in the future. This would be because the team has a very good blend of youth and experience, with  nine underclassmen and five upperclassmen. Of the nine underclassmen at Schaefer’s dispense, five of them are freshmen, who are part of the 2014 top-20 recruiting class that  Schaefer has been pleased with so far in her short time with the program. 
One of the standouts of the 2014 recruiting class is Victoria Vivians, who out of high school was a five-star recruit and was ranked as the 24th overall best player of the entire 2014 class according to ESPN rankings. She should have a major role on this year’s team, and after Sunday’s exhibition she spoke about how she enjoys having such a magnitude of talent around her. 
“It’s relieving because now I have players around me that can finish the shot when I pass it, and I don’t have to shoot everything. It’s fun to pass, I like passing the ball. I enjoy college ball a lot more than I do high school ball. It’s easier to dish it off to somebody you know is going to finish.”
Rounding out the 2014 class are Lakaris Salter, Kayla Nevitt, Morgan William and Blair Schaefer. This class has already come in and impressed the coaching staff, and in the exhibition game on Sunday against Arkansas-Fort Smith, the group combined to score 59 of the team’s 114 points. As the season progresses, don’t be surprised to see each one of the five freshman playing some kind of influential role on the team.  
One of great things about this year’s group is how deep the squad is from top to bottom.  While this may be great for fans of the team, it could turn out to be a challenge for Coach Schaefer. 
He said how it may become difficult to keep all of the players happy with the amount of minutes he can divvy up throughout the season. 
“I think we have more options and our skill set is better. Right now it’s a whole lot easier with 11 players, but when I’ve got 14 sitting over there chomping at the bit, it’s going to be a little bit, of a challenge for the ole head coach to make sure everybody is playing at the right time and with the right people, as well as keeping people happy. At the end of the day, I do think I have a team of givers and there’s not a lot of “I” people.”
One of the factors working in the favor of the Bulldogs is that their non conference schedule appears to be rather weak. This is a good thing because as of right now the team has a couple of injuries to key players, including Alwal and Kendra Grant, who is trying to get over her concussion she suffered earlier in the last month. As for Alwal, Coach Schaefer talked optimistically about when his dominating center would be back on the court. 
“Martha’s chomping at the bit. When and where I’m not sure yet, but I think she is chomping at the bit because she is a competitor, and it’s her senior year. Gosh, it’s unfortunate that you’ve got her and Kendra and Savannah over there at the start of their senior years. They can’t enjoy a day like today, and they won’t ever get it back, and that’s unfortuante.”   
Fortunately for the Bulldogs, their easier schedule during the first half of the season should give them the time they need to get healthy before the start of the super competitive SEC portion of the schedule.    
One of the players on the team that will need to step up in the absence of Alwal is junior Sherise Williams, who started off her season nicely on Sunday by scoring 19 points, grabbing four rebounds and contributing three blocks to the win. After the game, she spoke about the opportunity she may have in filling the shoes of her senior teammate, while at the same time talking about Alwal’s greatness. 
“Whenever my number is called, I’ve just got to be ready.  Martha is SEC All-First Team, Co-Defensive Player of the Year, and she demands respect and this is her team.”       
The team’s season offically gets underway on Friday against Mercer, as the game will kick off the Preseason WNIT tournament at Humphrey Coliseum at 8 p.m.