#21 Lady Bulldogs Put 63-point Beatdown on Lady Devils

Your #21 Mississippi State Women’s Basketball team put on a clinic today on how to demoralize an opponent. The game was a little close at the very beginning, but the Lady Dawgs pulled away and never looked back. Granted, Mississippi Valley State aren’t exactly used to facing off against such a fast, physical team like the Lady Bulldogs, but the scoring spread was impressive nevertheless. The most telling stat for the game? Simple, Mississippi State’s bench produced 73 points for the game. That’s right. 73 of the 104 scored by the Bulldogs were scored by the bench. The final score was 104-41, and honestly it felt like the score could have been much higher for the Bulldogs as they struggled from the line.

Mississippi Valley State started off the game with only 9 players eligible to play. That number quickly dwindled as two players went down in the first half. One with an ankle injury, the other with most likely an ACL injury. The second half was not kind to the Delta Devils as they only returned 7 players, two of those fouled out throughout the course of the game. One player did stand out among the rest for this MVSU squad. Sophomore guard Christina Reed scored 21 points, pacing her squad easily. No other player on the squad scored more than 5, while two players didn’t score at all. MVSU did shoot well from the charity stripe when they made it, shooting 11-12 for 91.7%.

Mississippi State pretty much dominated this game from start to finish. The Lady Dawgs finished the game shooting 44.2% from the field, and 50% from beyond the arc. Freshman guard Blair Schaefer paced the team with 12 points, all of which coming from 3 where she shot 4-5 for 80%. She also contributed with 5 assists. Five other players joined her in double digits, most of which scoring 11. Kendra Grant, Victoria Vivians, LaKaris Salter, and Chinwe Okorie all scored 11, with Morgan William adding 10 of her own. No players were in double digits for the Bulldogs, but Chinwe Okorie was the closest as she had 8 rebounds to go along with her 11 points. Senior forward Martha Alwal grabbed sole possession of the #9 slot in the SEC Career Blocks list, taking it from Georgia’s Tracy Henderson who had 267 blocks in her career. The Bulldogs forced 37 turnovers by the Delta Devils, while only committing 10 of their own. 19 of those 37 turnovers were steals, which is an astounding number for any team to reach.

The game for the Mississippi Valley State squad was not for naught as they brought one of the most famous fans that I can think of for a game. This fan stuck around for the whole game and provided entertainment for many fans in attendance if they saw him in action.

It’s a little difficult to see him, but if you look closely you’ll see him dancing in the middle of the view. He provided the entertainment for most of the game. Oh…and there was free chicken for everyone a little after the start of the second half as the Lady Bulldogs reached 75 points. The MSU Bulldogs will travel to Lafayette, LA to face off against the UL-L Ragin’ Cajuns in the Cajun Dome on Wednesday. There will be no TV broadcast of the game, but it will be available online (audio only) through the HailState Plus program. You can also listen to the game in the Starkville and Tupelo areas with 100.9 FM and 96.3 FM respectively. Tip-off is set for 11:00 AM and it will be the annual Elementary Day at the Cajun Dome.