Mississippi State Women’s Basketball Is For Real
In case you have been living under a rock due to Men’s Basketball not doing so well, you might have missed out on the Mississippi State women’s basketball team going undefeated through the non-conference slate. Not only are the ladies undefeated, but they are also #17 in the country, according to the latest Associated Press poll. The Lady Bulldogs are currently riding its longest win streak, best start in history, and a Preseason WNIT title into SEC play.
To get to their 15-0 record, the Bulldogs held their last 11 opponents to only connecting on 29.7% of their shots. Their latest game against the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, they held the UAPB squad to a 15.3% shooting percentage. Even with these great stats, the Lady Bulldogs have scared their faithful fans in some instances. A game that comes to mind is the matchup in the Cajun Dome against the then-undefeated Lousiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns. If you watched/listened to the game, you would know how stressful the game was to witness.
The Bulldogs will open up SEC play against a 1-loss Georgia squad that dropped 5 spots to #19. Now there is a fallacy with the Women’s Basketball polls. For example, a 4-loss Stanford squad and a 3-loss Duke squad are ranked ahead of undefeated Mississippi State. Then there are teams that are extremely strong, that are left out of the polls completely. With that in mind, this team may should be ranked higher than #17 but will work their way up as the wins continue, hopefully.
All in all, if you say that you can’t afford to go to Women’s games you’re lying. Children under 18 get in free, general admission tickets are $5 per game, season tickets are fairly cheap, and students get in free. There is no excuse for not having full fan support for literally the best Women’s Basketball team in school history. The last time we even got close to seeing something like this, the women’s team went on to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Let’s pack out the Hump for these ladies that play their hearts out every night.
Also, the team is filled with talent. Freshman guard Victoria Vivians is a scoring machine with a full green light at all times. Yes she may go into scoring droughts, but then she can get white hot and hit 8 shots in a row from anywhere. Vivians is the current National High School career scoring record holder, and that’s one of the main reasons why she has a permanent green light. Then you have senior Martha Alwal who is climbing the SEC All-Time blocks list throughout the season, and Kendra Grant who has scored over 1,000 points in her career. Dominique Dillingham is an absolute player in every way possible, and is a leader on the court.
This team is fun to watch, now it’s our job to provide the crowd to watch them. So let’s support Vic Schaefer and these women in the manner in which they deserve.