MSU seeks successful two days in Las Vegas
There is one goal the Mississippi State women's basketball team has this week.
The Bulldogs want to complete the non-conference part of their schedule undefeated.
MSU will do that with a pair of wins at the Duel in the Desert in Las Vegas against UNLV and Syracuse.
Coach Vic Schaefer doesn't want the Bulldogs to get so caught up with atmosphere in Las Vegas that they forget what they are there to do. He wants to make sure they know it's a business trip.
“It will be a pretty good place to have a business trip, but it is a business trip and I expect them to approach it that way,” Schaefer said. “We've got practice and we've got to get better. We've got two big ones in front of us.”
“We get a chance to finish the preseason part perfect. That's our goal and that's what our message is going to be in (the locker room).”
MSU's first true road game of the season comes against UNLV at 4:30 p.m. today.
The Lady Running Rebels have a 5-4 record after losing at Stanford 74-33 last Saturday.
After UNLV, the Bulldogs will see a Syracuse program at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday that made it to the NCAA Final Four in 2016.
It's Schaefer's hope that when the two games in two days are over, MSU will still have an undefeated record to celebrate during the Christmas break.
“You risk going out there, putting them in a position to have some failure and sending kids home at Christmas,” Schaefer said. “I don't like doing that. I like going home for Christmas with some success in their back pocket, but I think this team is prepared and ready for that. It will be good for them. I think they get more interested in playing somebody good than they do when they don't think somebody is any good. That's just kids. I can get as mad as I want and frustrated with it, but at the end of the day, when they get their mind made up, it's hard to convince them otherwise. When we go out there, they know we are running into two pretty good teams.”
The Bulldogs will enter the Duel in the Desert with two-time Southeastern Conference Player of the Week on their roster.
Junior center Teaira McCowan averaged 26.5 points and 15 rebounds in wins over Oregon and Maine last week to pick up her latest league honor. She heads to Las Vegas averaging an SEC seventhbest 17.5 points per game and a league second-best 12.2 rebounds per outing. McCowan also ranks second in the SEC and 11th in NCAA Division I making 64.8 percent from the field.
While McCowan patrols the middle, senior Victoria Vivians is the most productive guard for MSU.
Vivians stands third in the SEC in scoring this season at 19.4 points per game and ranks ninth in the league in field goal percentage at 53.5 percent and fifth in the conference by hitting 84.1 from the free-throw line.
Along with McCowan and Vivians, the other starters for the Bulldogs are expected to be Blair Schaefer, Roshunda Johnson and Morgan William.
Both MSU games in Las Vegas will be available on live video at www.flohoops.com through a subscription. The radio broadcast can be heard on the MSU radio network and online on www.hailstate. com/plus and the TuneIn app.