No nosedive for Schaefer's MSU team

This time last year, Vic Schaefer was bidding farewell ­ or so he thought ­ to four senior starters who had helped the Bulldogs women's basketball program become an established national powerhouse. One of those senior starters was a mountain named Teaira McCowan, the most dominant post player in the sport.

After two consecutive Final Fours and a remarkable 132 victories over four seasons, there seemed plenty of reason to expect a dramatic nosedive from all that success. In McCowan and Anriel Howard, Schaefer was losing 33 points and 22 rebounds per game.

But that nosedive has not happened. Not at all.

No, when the Mississippi State Bulldogs toppled a really good Arkansas team 9283 ­ and it wasn't that close ­ Thursday night, it was their 24th victory against just five defeats. They are a Top 10 team nationally and will be a No. 2 seed in the Southeastern Conference Tournament this week in Greenville, South Carolina.

You can make the case ­ and I will ­ that this is the best coaching job Schaefer has done since he came to State in 2012. Think about it: He did have to replace three players who started all 36 games a year ago. The average age of this year's State squad, says Schaefer, is 19. That's what you expect to have at Hinds Community College, not the SEC.

And yet, with a 13-person roster that includes four freshmen and four sophomores, these Bulldogs keep winning. It is a difficult balancing act: Trying to teach, correct mistakes, and stress work ethic without bruising young egos and destroying confidence. But every time you think that lack of experience is about to catch up with State, they respond with a performance like the one Thursday night.

Early in the season, they lost back-to-back games to No. 3 Stanford and West Virginia. But they then reeled off eight consecutive victories. On Jan. 20, they blew a nine-point lead and lost on the road to No. 1 ranked South Carolina 81-79. Three nights later, they won by 16 at Vanderbilt, the first of six straight SEC victories, five by double digits.

Perhaps the Bulldogs' worst loss came at home Sunday, Feb. 23, when unranked Alabama surprised them, 66-64. (Don't look now but nobody wants to play vastly improved Alabama this week.) Afterward, Schaefer criticized his team's toughness and lack of "someone who will step up when the going gets tough."

So then, naturally, everyone stepped up against Arkansas. Tough? Star freshman Rickea Jackson gutted out 16 minutes playing with strep throat, two days after she had been quarantined. More on her later.

With a win over Ole Miss this past Sunday, that means the achievement of 25 victories in a season for the sixth consecutive season. How's that for sustained success?

We began this piece with the fact that this time last year Schaefer thought he would be replacing four starters. He got one of those back in August, when Jordan Danberry, a graduate guard was granted another year ofeligibility. Danberry, as quick and fast a female athlete as these eyes have seen, has been invaluable with her 12.3 points per game, tenacious on-ball defense and a teamleading 72 steals.

Nobody was going to singularly replace the remarkable McCowan, but sophomore Jessica Carter has contributed 14 points and nine rebounds per game in the post. And then there's Jackson, the rookie, who Schaefer believes should be the national freshman of the year.

Compare Jackson's freshman numbers with those of Victoria Vivians, the former All-American, who won the Gillom Trophy as Mississippi's top women's player all four of her seasons at State. As a freshman, Vivians scored 14.9 points per game, while shooting 37 percent from the field and adding five rebounds per game. Jackson, who is 18 years young, averages 14.7 points and five rebounds per game while shooting 48 percent from the floor. Other than Jackson's superior shooting, those numbers are eerily similar.

Says Schaefer, "Before it's over, Rickea might be the best ever." That's coming from a man who is nothing if not a perfectionist. During our recent conversation he bemoaned his team's immaturity, the fact that they don't yet know how to follow a scouting report, and that they are prone to lapses on the defensive end.

And while much of that is true, they are also 25 and 5, almost certain to host a firstround NCAA sub-regional and a team that could get hot and go deep into the NCAA Tournament.

The scary part: They should be even better over the next couple of seasons when maybe a couple of them will be old enough to legally buy a beer.

Rick Cleveland is a sports columnist for Mississippi Today.