Mississippi State women’s basketball looks to move forward
Thursday night ended what turned out to be a season of disappointment for Mississippi State women's basketball.
The Bulldogs certainly battled in the final three games of the year. Playing a strong Penn State team to the final seconds in its arena coupled with the fact MSU played hard in its first two games of the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament was admirable, but the seven game-stretch prior to the tournament is what led both casual and diehard fans asking what happened.
Let's rewind back to around this point a year ago. Coach Sam Purcell's Bulldogs beat the odds as he not only got them back into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years, the coach led MSU to two tournament wins and it was incredibly close to beating Notre Dame on the road to advance to the Sweet 16.
Purcell followed that up by bringing in one of the best transfer portal hauls in the country, signed a top 25 freshman class and had All-southeastern Conference players Jessika Carter and Jerkaila Jordan back to add to the mix.
Expectations were extremely high for the Bulldogs coming into the year and the team even had some top 25 votes preseason to back it up. A few games into the year, MSU followed through by pushing itself back into that top 25 officially.
The Bulldogs were 8-0 and clicking on all cylinders before post players Carter and Barnum both went down with minor injuries. With those two out of the mix, MSU lost consecutive games to Miami and Chattanooga. Winning just one of those games might have gotten the Bulldogs into the NCAA Tournament, but they would more than right the ship.
After losing the first two SEC games and then starting 2-3 in conference play, MSU found itself. The Bulldogs went on a five-game winning streak that included the best win for an MSU team since Vic Schaefer was coach when it had a 77-73 triumph over a top 10 LSU team.
At 7-3 in the SEC and facing a much more manageable schedule, the Bulldogs were bound for a strong finish to the year. A top four SEC finish was in the cards with MSU continuing to move up the seeding line until everything fell apart.
Florida beat down MSU at Humphrey Coliseum by 20, then the Bulldogs blew an eightpoint fourth quarter lead on the road to drop the game against Ole Miss. The low point of the season came when MSU lost a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter and Kentucky beat them by 10 points with a lame duck head coach.
As the dust settled following the SEC Tournament, it was a complete collapse. The Bulldogs lost six of seven games, were out