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Message: [QUOTE="bballnut90, post: 2563631, member: 2117"] Really good win for Mississippi State. They showed major toughness and badly outplayed South Carolina down the stretch. The offense was not very good most of the game for Mississippi State until Holmes came in and got them going. Once they started going to McCowan, looks opened up for Schaefer/Bibby. I always love seeing William play, but Holmes is a great backup who made the difference tonight. I was pretty underwhelmed by McCowan until the 4th quarter. You could tell that she was tentative playing South Carolina--she wasn't posting hard or aggressively going for rebounds until the 2nd half. She also missed a bunch of chippies she normally hits and was getting a bit anxious. Once she settled down, she played a lot better. Defensively I thought she did a really poor job the first half. She didn't provide any help side defense and she has the size and length to block a lot more shots than she did. In the second half, she was more active and more aggressive on the glass. Once she fired up and started battling, Mississippi State pulled away. Wilson is a matchup nightmare for her. If A'ja is on either elbow, she can blow by McCowan if Teaira closes on her, but she can also stick the 15 foot jumper. Wilson is also tall and long in her own right, so McCowan can't use her length to block the shot easily if Wilson beats her. If they meet again in the SEC Championship, look for this to be exploited. Lots of unsung heroes for Mississippi State today--obviously Holmes was huge. Bibby was a big difference maker off the bench too. Her statline isn't great, but she was extremely physical and played with high energy chasing down loose balls. It's amazing how a high energy player can get everyone going. Same with Schaefer--lots of good activity and she hit open shots. She plays a very similar role on Mississippi State that Nurse does for UCONN--smart player who hits open shots and plays tough defense. She's been very good in every game I've seen this year. Vivians was outstanding in the first and struggled in the second, but I didn't think she took many bad shots and kept them in the game when no one was doing anything offensively for Mississippi State. I may have been influenced by the crowd, but I thought the refs made a number of really bad calls that went against Mississippi State. They waved off McCowan's basket, I thought the retaliation foul was a bad call, Wilson got just about every call in her favor, etc. There was one call against Bibby where Wilson just elbowed Bibby in the head and Bibby was called for the foul. I was also rooting for Mississippi State, so I'm sure I'm overlooking calls that went in South Carolina's favor. The one really bad call against South Carolina was Harris's 5th. From what I saw, I didn't think she touched her and it ended up being her 5th. I don't think it would've made a difference as Mississippi State had all the momentum at that point, but I thought I'd mention it. For South Carolina, I thought Wilson was phenomenal in 3 quarters and then she just sort of gassed out. Missed a few chippies she normally makes and she was getting frustrated. South Carolina does not have a good supporting cast though. They don't have good shooters besides Spann, who doesn't produce against good teams, and the other guards are good, but can only consistently score 15 feet and in. Jennings is good but can also be neutralized, and besides that you're left with Wilson carrying a very large load. She needs more help. In regards to how Mississippi State stacks up against UCONN....I think UCONN has an edge, but it really comes down to which team shows up for both squads. If it's the confident Mississippi State team that shows up most nights, it'll be a good game. If they play timid and jack up a lot of perimeter shots like they did to start the game today, it could be a comfortable UCONN win. Mississippi State plays good defense and has a ton of experience, so I don't expect a blowout by UCONN. It's a bit of a weird triangle in that Mississippi State seems to play timid against South Carolina but was fearless against UCONN, South Carolina was timid against the Huskies but seemed confident most of the game against Mississippi State, and UCONN always plays confidently against South Carolina, but was timid against Mississippi State last year. [/QUOTE]

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