SID SALTER: MSU women back on Final Four stage

Published 5:01 pm Saturday, March 31, 2018

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The moment the shot dropped is one that will stay with me always. The shot was a buzzer-beating dagger, a wickedly accurate, miraculous thing of beauty – a soul-soaring bolt of lightning in a bottle.

Native Mississippian and ABC “Good Morning America” star Robin Roberts wept after the game in the MSU locker room. Dallas Cowboys quarterback and MSU alum Dak Prescott went full freak in the stands in real time as the game ended in Bulldog jubilation.

“The Shot Heard Round the World” broke the Internet, dominated the broadcast airwaves and sent print reporters searching for adjectives.

Some Bulldog fans called it a religious experience and who am I to argue? It happened in the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas on March 31, 2017 in Mississippi State University’s national semi-final game with the University of Connecticut Huskies.

I watched it happen, but there are times I still can’t really believe it happened.

MSU point guard Morgan William’s shot sealed a 66-64 overtime upset win for the Bulldogs over a UConn team that had won the last four consecutive national championships and had a 111-game winning streak. One of those 111 wins had been a 60-point NCAA Sweet 16 virtual decapitation of this very MSU team in 2016.

At the overtime buzzer, William – a figure so physically diminutive at 5’5” (not even close, but that’s what it says in the media guide) that her nickname is “Itty Bitty” – hit a pull-up jumper for the ages to nail down the most unlikely of upsets of what most Americans who don’t live in Knoxville, Tennessee believe is the greatest women’s basketball dynasty in history.

Fittingly, the shot was made by William over 5’11” UConn forward Gabby Williams. Photos captured William’s absolute levitation (there really is no word more accurate to describe it) over Williams to get the shot off.

With the shot, the MSU women levitated the spirits of MSU fans and most Mississippians in a way that no team had since the MSU Diamond Dogs rose to challenge the UCLA Bruins for the NCAA national baseball championship in 2013, the 1980 football Bulldogs shocked then-No. 1 Alabama and Bear Bryant in Memorial Stadium in Jackson, or Maj. Ralph Sasse led the 1935 State football team to a stunning 13-7 defeat of mighty Army.

The 2017 MSU women that shocked UConn became famous among MSU fans like Bailey Howell, John Bond, Will Clark, Raphael Palmiero, and Prescott are famous. They made history, despite losing the 2017 NCAA national championship to South Carolina two days later 67-55. For the fans, not even the sting of losing the national championship to the Gamecocks dulled the absolute joy of the UConn upset. That was the case for almost everyone among the Maroon faithful – everyone save the team and Head Coach Vic Schaefer.

The team that Schaefer built and the MSU nation’s embrace of that team produced a home court advantage in Starkville that in truth had only been previously seen in Knoxville, Tennessee, Storrs, Connecticut, or Columbia, South Carolina.

The advantage manifested itself in sold-out crowds at Humphrey Coliseum. National television coverage. Star status for the players on campus, in the Starkville community, and in the media. There was a regular season Southeastern Conference championship, first in school history in any women’s sport.

But the team and the coach fought all season long for one goal – the right to compete for a national championship. With a hard-fought victory over Louisville, MSU’s women are back on the national stage in the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

As was the case last year, the odds are against them. The experts and the bookies are picking against them. They have traveled a long, hard road this season.

They have taken the punches of the best teams in the country and again risen to this final stage against a daunting opponent.

Can MSU catch and bottle another bolt of NCAA Final Four tournament lightning? Maybe. Maybe not.

But knowing these remarkable, special young women and the dedicated educator who coaches them, I sure wouldn’t bet against them.