From Thinking To Doing
January 09, 2022 | Women's Basketball, Joel Coleman
Bulldogs have built a belief in themselves.
STARKVILLE – I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. It's the thought The Little Engine That Could had in the classic children's tale.
You surely know the story. A small engine agrees to help pull a larger train over a mountain. It's a seemingly insurmountable task. But…
I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. Sure enough, The Little Engine That Could, did.
It's not too much unlike the ongoing plot of this year's Mississippi State women's basketball team. Circumstances have made the Bulldogs a figurative little engine. There have been bumps in the road. There have been health issues. There have been unexpected obstacles.
Preseason coaching shift? Yep. Unexpected schedule adjustments? You bet. Key players down? Check.
Through it all, the Maroon and White train has kept right on chugging. So it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that on Sunday, there State was climbing over yet another peak.
MSU topped Vanderbilt 70-63 at Humphrey Coliseum. The Dawgs did it with only seven scholarship players available – the minimum allowed by rules. For the second straight game, leading scorer Rickea Jackson was one of the Bulldogs that couldn't go.
Truth be told on Sunday and in recent days, it's much easier to count the things going right for Mississippi State than the many things going wrong. Don't tell this group the odds were stacked against them again though. They thought they could. They thought they could. They thought they could. Then they went out and put another tally in the win column.
Once again MSU proved its optimism isn't based on some unrealistic fantasy. There's no false bravado. This team is tough. It's resilient. It's simply good, regardless of the circumstances.
"When we came together at the end [of Sunday's game], it was just a very special moment," Myah Taylor said. "That moment described everything we are about. We want to see each other do good and we want to win. We know we're limited, but like I said [a few days ago], it's not 'Why us?', but it's, 'Why not us?' I just think we take that mindset and work hard every day with what we do have, and we just keep rolling."
Mississippi State can't even go 5-on-5 against each other in practice right now. Heck, the Bulldogs barely have the numbers to go 5-on-5 against opponents in real games that count.
From the preseason to now, it'd have been awfully easy for the Bulldogs to focus on all their can'ts. And by now, it'd almost have been expected for them to have accepted their recent run of bad luck and tough situations as evidence this just wouldn't be their season. Try again next year, right?
Ha. Not a chance.
"I can feel the energy from everyone," Anastasia Hayes said. "We come out every day and we've been practicing a lot harder. We've been buying in. I can tell we're up for a challenge – any challenge. We're ready…I feel like there's no one that can stop us if we're all working together and bought in and playing together as one."
Give credit where credit is due, and it's due all over the place, from the support staff all the way to the players themselves. Be sure to give interim head coach Doug Novak plenty of kudos, too.
Novak came to State to be an assistant. Only weeks later, he was thrust into his current role. Like the players he's guiding, Novak hasn't made excuses. He's simply went out, gone about his business and got the job done.
"It was very noticeable on the first day of practice when he came to coach us that he knew the game really well," Taylor said. "You could tell he just coaches with so much passion and I think that's infectious for us. He pours into us. We respond and play hard for him and each other. I'm very grateful we have him right now. I think we're all buying into his vision and what he wants this team to do. With him and the rest of the coaches, we trust them, and we go out and execute what we need to do."
Adds Hayes: "You only can control what you can control, and we've just bought into coach. You can tell he has a great coaching IQ, and we just have to trust him. At first, we didn't know him, but we're starting to get to know him more and buying into his system and the way he coaches and trusting in him and believing in him. I feel like that's what's been helpful."
Novak has done an incredible job with this team. Even the most casual of observers can see that. The Bulldogs are prepared. They're fundamentally sound. That's no accident by the way.
"In practice, we work on fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals," Hayes said. "That's very important. Those are things I feel like we weren't doing at the beginning sometimes. We've been focusing back on that, and I feel like that's been helping us."
Novak says the Bulldogs are doing things backwards. Whereas some teams focus more on opponents and scouting reports as the season goes along, MSU is fine-tuning the basics. And why?
"At the end of the day, those are the plays that win games," Novak said. "It's not necessarily the play we're calling, it's the play after the play, or what somebody might say is a broken play."
You see it when Mississippi State hits the floor each game. The Bulldogs are being programmed to do the little things right. With backs to the wall like MSU's has been in recent days, those little things make all the difference.
In the big picture though, maybe the most important lesson State has learned so far is belief – a belief they can overcome absolutely anything.
You saw it a week ago when the Bulldogs made an impromptu trip to South Carolina and took the fight to the then-top-ranked Gamecocks. You saw it in a gutsy win at Alabama on Thursday. It was once again on full display Sunday in the triumph over Vandy.
Is there anything these Dawgs can't do? Sure doesn't seem like it, and they certainly show no evidence of a team playing with fear or hesitation. With this kind of I-think-I-can attitude, who knows how far this train can travel?
"They've stuck it out and we've been relentlessly patient in teaching the way we think the game should be played," Novak said. "At some point in time, they have to be rewarded for that or have a feeling that they're getting better over the course of a season or at practice. Whether it's men, women, college, high school or the NBA, when people feel like they're getting better – when they can see a light at the end of the tunnel and there's hope – there's a chance for growth. I think we're starting to see it and feel it and it's a special thing to be a part of."
