Mississippi St.-South Carolina Preview (Apr 1, 2017)
DALLAS -- When Mississippi State guard Morgan William made a jump shot at the buzzer from just outside the free throw line to topple Connecticut and its 111-game winning streak on Friday night, it captured the attention of women's college basketball.
It sent Mississippi State into a frenzied celebration of its NCAA Tournament semifinal victory. The Bulldogs (34-4) advanced to play South Carolina (32-4) in an all-Southeastern Conference national championship game on Sunday evening at American Airlines Center.
It brought the Huskies face to face with the agony of defeat for the first time in more than 28 months.
But it wasn't incomparable.
By pulling off a huge upset in a semifinal game, Mississippi State brought to mind another semifinal shocker, or at least it did for Bulldogs coach Vic Schaefer.
Last season, before Mississippi State faced Connecticut in the Sweet 16, Schaefer said he watched the film "Miracle," about the 1980 U.S. hockey team that famously defeated the heavily favored Soviet Union in the semifinals of the Olympic Games before going on to a gold medal.
Now, Schaefer finds himself in a similar position as U.S. hockey coach Herb Brooks, who had to get his team focused on one more game after the semifinal upset.
"We talked about it in the locker room, that there is one more," Schaefer said during his postgame press conference late Friday night. "It's funny, last year I'm showing ("Miracle"), this year now I'm having to live it, 'cause there's one more game."
However, Schaefer also acknowledged it won't be difficult to focus his players on SEC-rival South Carolina.
The Gamecocks won the regular season SEC championship, finishing a game in front of second-place Mississippi State.
South Carolina defeated the Bulldogs in their only regular season game, 64-61, in Columbia, S.C. The Gamecocks prevailed again with a 59-49 victory over Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament championship game in early March.
"We've been beaten twice by South Carolina," Schaefer said. "Our kids, we know what's coming down the pike. It won't take much to get their attention. That's our job, my job as the coach."
South Carolina erased a nine-point halftime deficit to defeat Stanford in the first semifinal on Friday.
Gamecocks guards Allisha Gray and Tyasha Harris combined for 28 points and forward A'ja Wilson posted 13 points and 19 rebounds in the 62-53 victory over the Cardinal.
Now South Carolina and Mississippi State both will be playing in the national championship game for the first time.
Even before she knew her team would be facing an SEC foe in the title tilt, Wilson felt the significance of the moment.
"We know that we're not done," Wilson said. "But just the feeling of just making history at your school is just something really special. Especially with the game of women's basketball, we're kind of putting South Carolina on the map right now."
By knocking off four-time defending national champion Connecticut, Mississippi State probably caused ESPN to scrap a lot of prepared footage in prelude to the Huskies playing in the national championship game on Sunday.
But the Bulldogs also supplied plenty of drama in stepping into the national spotlight.
"I feel like we earned respect tonight," William said. "You know, people didn't believe in us. But it didn't faze us. We just had to go out there and play. I feel like it showed we're better than what everybody thinks."
