Mississippi State gets ready for final
DALLAS - The day after the shot that shocked the world and upset UConn, it’s fair to say there was a certain amount of adrenaline that was fueling Mississippi State on Saturday afternoon.
Coach Vic Schaefer got his team past hundreds, if not thousands, of cheering fans in the team hotel late Saturday night, pulled them into the team meeting room and released them around 1:30 a.m. with a message, “Celebrate tonight. But be ready to play tomorrow.”
After all, there is a national championship game to be played at 5 p.m. Sunday against South Carolina. The players said they listened, and most of them went to sleep pretty quickly — as Schaefer said during his postgame press conference, these girls like to sleep.
But forward Breanna Richardson admitted it was probably several hours later before she came down enough from the high of beating the Huskies to fall asleep. She had big plans of squeezing in a nap at some point.
“I think right now we’re good,” Richardson said. “We have to stay in the moment, and live in it, but stay grounded.”
Schaefer said he left his coaches in the film room at 3:21 a.m. and got two hours of sleep before going on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“I don’t know who watches Good Morning America at 5:30 on a Saturday morning,” Schaefer said, “but I did it.”
The first part of Final Four week was spent with Mississippi State as set dressing in the coronation of UConn and what was supposed to be its fifth-straight national championship. When the Bulldogs won 66-64 in overtime Friday night, it changed the conversation. Now it’s about Mississippi State, and just who is this women’s basketball upstart?
There was significant talk about Morgan William, the point guard who made the shot to beat UConn in overtime, days after scoring 41 points to beat Baylor. Is she bigger in Starkville than Dak Prescott now? (Verdict from the players: Probably still Dak, but it’s close.) And what’s up with that “Itty Bitty” nickname for the 5-5 William?
“I don’t call her that,” Victoria Vivians dead-panned.
But that’s all conversation, and what’s really important right now is whether or not Mississippi State can put the win in the national semifinal behind it enough to give itself a chance in the national championship.
“When we got on the bus (Friday) we were like, ‘We’re not done,’” center Teaira McCowan said.
Senior guard Dominique Dillingham left the court Friday night, looked at a bank of local media, held up a single finger and repeatedly said, “One more.”
A day after an upset that will live on in women’s basketball forever, Mississippi State seemed ready to only worry about the next day.
“We’re not going to take anything for granted,” Vivians said, “because we have a chance to win the title.”