Dillingham, State defense make it difficult on Plum
OKLAHOMA CITY – Four-straight 3s hit the bottom of the net for the Washington Huskies and they looked to be well on their way to another great offensive showing.
Mississippi State’s Secretary of Defense Vic Schaefer had seen that performance already when watching the Huskies play last week when they bottomed 18 3-pointers to make it to the Sweet 16. The Bulldog head coach wasn’t going to let them do it again.
Enter one of the foundations of his program in star defender Dominique Dillingham. Against the top scorer in the history of the game, Dillingham and her teammates clamped down.
It started late in the first quarter and ran into the second when MSU went from giving up 20 points in the first period to nine the next. The 7-for-11 start was followed by a 3-for-15 stretch that allowed the Bulldogs to go from down nine points to up nine at the half.
“Dom came in and was Dominique,” Schaefer said. “She’s one of the best in the country. She really did a fantastic job on Plum. We made her work for everything.” All-American Kelsey Plum started the game with a couple of 3s. From there, Dillingham made life miserable for her.
The points were there for Plum who put up 29 in the game, but she had to shoot 25 shots to get them and she finished 3-of-8 from 3-point range. Dillingham and Victoria Vivians more than held their own on the nation’s all-time leading scorer. Dillingham, a senior guard, blocked two shots, stole two basketballs and effected countless other plays.
“Plum is an amazing player,” Dillingham said. “It was a great battle all
night long, but my teammates were able to help out a lot. We had an umbrella defense and everybody helped. It was a team effort.”
From Plum’s perspective, she felt smothered. The Bulldogs helped off of screens and stayed close to the lethal offensive weapon. It led to four turnovers in her 40 minutes of play and countless forced shots that wouldn’t fall.
“It was difficult to get my shot off,” Plum said. “They shaded me with a big player, they switched screens, they hedged screens and mixed it up. Give credit to them. They had a great defensive game plan and I didn’t make shots.”
The most impressive work from MSU’s defensive was shutting down the lineup around Plum and Chantel Osahor. The two star players had 46 of the team’s 64 points. The point total was also 20 points below the season average for Washington, which is eighth in the country in scoring.
Dillingham and Vivians came off the bench for the third game in a row and the effectiveness of State’s entire depth chart was felt for four quarters. Washington head coach Mike Neighbors saw how well the Bulldogs adjusted to the lineup changes in the Starkville Regional and he wasn’t surprised it’s continuing to work now.
“When you can do what Vic Schaefer did going into the NCAA Tournament – put your four starters down, you got your team,” Neighbors said. “He knows his team as well as any coach in the country to push that button and take that type of a risk. You saw it coming. They’ve been getting better all week and I thought they played outstanding.”