Mike Siroky’s SEC Report: State in Elite Eight

By Mike Siroky

The best conference in women’s basketball, the Southeastern, started the Sweet 16 with three of the field. 

The Pac 12 had four. The ACC had three. The Big 12 had one and UConn’s conference one. 

There are two games until the Final Four. 

All of the previous tournament’s Final Four are still playing. 

Thirteen of the top 16 in the final poll are still playing, including one through eight, or half the field.

 Portland has seeds 1-4 left. Chicago and Albany have 1-2-4. Greensboro has 1-2-3-4. 

Another way to spin it is only four of the 16 seeded teams lost at home.

Cremeology does not seem so difficult now, does it?

The expected showdown between Louisville and UConn in Albany  is still on track, which eliminates one recent  Final Four team. 

UConn had to stop defending national champ South Carolina last season to alter the Final Four then as well.

Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell was honored by the Women’s Basketball Coaches’ Association with inclusion in its Victory Club for his 300th win.

When Tennessee parted ways after decades with coach Holy Warlick it was not unexpected. 

At different times this year, she confided in friends she even considered taking a break.m

The university took away that option by dismissing her. 

The timing was in question, unless it was simply to arrange the buyout, which exceed $600,000.

The lack of enthusiasm by players has been a multi-year experience. She lost teams at the end of last season and this.

Besides the school record six-game SEC losing string, many public statements came from within the bunker. A former player, now ESPN an analyst, cited the lack of effort, on the air.

Then team cornerstone Evina Westbrook had a disillusioned final game of her sophomore season at Tennessee and had enough guts to mention a need for a coaching adjustment. 

This coming  from a teenager, a cry for help to the adults at her school. 

She has not given up on basketball. 

In fact, she led the team in scoring and carried them many times. She is dating a current star of the men’s team and has found a nice life in Knoxville.

Holly Warlick has publicly said she intends to continue coaching. Those statements are  not mutually exclusive.

It is hard to follow a legend.

In the men’s game, the immediate replacements for Bob Knight, John Wooden and even Dean SmIth did not work out. 

We mentioned dominant multi-year champions of the women’s game last week, each of which fell off the map when the famous coach left.

It is not about institutional support or even  tradition.

When Warlick started a new three-year extension this season, we mentioned it also gave her a nice buyout should one be needed. 

Actually, the three-year extension included a less of a buyout. UT let her hang herself and saved money.

 This is two straight seasons to end in flops.

Every coach in America has praised the stockpile of talent from two straight excellent recruiting classes and another of commitments.

A new coach would inherit all of that, a great fan base and institutional support. 

Tennessee lists the 8,000-plus tickets sold as attendance, one of the best in America. In fact, sometimes 6,000 were no-shows. 

We have always reported loss of income is the first thing an AD notices and needs to correct.

A new coach inherits a fan base nonetheless.

Two of the most-discussed incomers still coached this weekend, a good thing. 

If UT wants to go within family, Missouri State coach Kellie Harper won three national championships as a point guard under Pat Head at Tennessee and has done more than Warlick for three straight seasons with less talent.

The national wild card is at Louisville, another proven straight shooter. 

Do not expect the sycophants at Knoxville to report any of this. 

 A big hire at the Final Four would renew interest in the program and may stop the next group of commitments from leaving.

By the way, three of the four teams to eliminate SEC teams made the Sweet 16.

The Elite Eight has begun to form.

Mississippi State (32-2) 76, Arizona State (22-11) 53

The best representative of the conference took down a Pac 12 entrant. 

The Bulldogs are the only SEC team with a chance to win it all. They have to get past Oregon, the only non-conference team to beat them this season, to do it.

The Sun Devils hung around quite awhile. 

The trick for the lesser team is to do just that. Teaira McCowan started off a bit. She had as many personal fouls as points, two in the first half.

They were up by eight at intermission. It increased by one at the end of the third, allowing the Sun Devils to not collapse when down by 13 inside of a minute. 

McCowan, concentrating on defense, had nine rebounds, but only six points. But the storm was gathering.

Senior Anriel Howard had 10 points heading towards her first Elite Eight. 

Senior Jazzmun Holmes, in her first season as a starter, had six assists and 10 points. 

Sophomore Audra Espinoza Hunter had two 3s and a dozen points.

They only had six turnovers, while causing 13.

So the ’Dawgs seemed headed toward a defensive win.

Arizona State came in allowing 66 points per game. State averages 20 more than that.

It had not trended positively for the fifth seed.

Arizona State assigned three bigs to McCowan. Each had four fouls by the end of the third.

“I couldn't be prouder of my team,” coach Vic Schaefer said. “Defensively, that may be as good as we’ve been in a while. I am extremely proud of my team. You win a game in the NCAA Tournament, you know you are doing some things right.”

They did enough things right to win a third straight Elite 8 appearance.

McCowan edged into another double/double, 10 of each. She was already 5-of-7 from the line. The defense did not allow a threatening run.

Mississippi State’s conditioning pride allows the starters to play as many minutes as needed. 

With four minutes to go, each team was hobbled with 16 fouls, eight apiece inside the paint. 

Mississippi State pushed the lead to 20, on the way to a school NCAA record 25-of-35 from the line. 

They had bypassed the Sun Devils’ points allowed. 

Arizona State hit 37 percent from the floor. 

They scored eight in the final quarter of their season as they said farewell to four seniors.

“It’s kinda what we do,” Schaefer said. “You lull them to sleep with defense, then you hit them with T.”

McCowan had 20 second-half points and 13 rebounds, her 30th double/double. 

She was 10-of-11 from the line. She had three blocked shots. 

She is the all-time NCAA tournament rebounds leader. McCowan is one of four Wade Trophy finalists.

 She is not the favorite.

Holmes added seven to the program single season assist record, 189. She had 13 points. 

She had no turnovers. 

“She brought a team with two players who weren’t even in the system eight months ago to the Elite Eight,” Schaefer said. “If there is a better point guard in America, tell me who it is.”

Words were exchanged by an Arizona State player in the handshake line. The coach apologized for her.

Schaefer said: “Want to congratulate Arizona State. I just have so much respect for Charli and her staff, her program. I've had some real knock-down, drag-outs with them over my career. I love how they play.

“ I love their toughness and their competitive spirit. Her team embodies her.

“We’re both very similar. We love our teams to be the way they are. I told my kids tonight the tougher team was going to win. 

“It was going to be about toughness and resilience tonight. I thought we were really tough and showed a lot of resilience. When they would make a run, we answered it.

“Teaira was Teaira today, especially in the second half. It doesn’t take much when you come in at halftime and see she shot it one time.

“ I’m pretty sure I wrote down on offense what we needed to do to maybe fix a little bit of what we were doing.

“That’s kind of my plan, to be honest with you. But nonetheless, I just thought our team was really tough and resilient today. 

“I thought our execution was outstanding. Only seven turnovers, which we wrote on the board, ‘We don’t need to be turning the ball over.’ 

“Execute. I thought our transition defense was really good, which is what we were really worried about.

“ That was the number one concern with them because their posts really get out and run. I thought we were really good in that aspect, as well.

“That’s a great team that we beat today. I’m tickled to death that our kids played the way they did. It took a great effort from us to win that game tonight. So now we move on.”

McCowan said the physical defense, in which she took shots to the back, has become a routine approach.

“I know that I have to keep a cool head a little bit for my teammates, as well as my coaching staff,” she said.

 “ I know I can’t go out there and do something crazy and get a technical and be sitting on the bench because that'’s not what my team needs.

“At some point my teammates are going to knock down shots. (The defenders) start fading off, from three it will be two, then one-on-one. I just got to play it smart.

“ I fight for those rebounds as well as anyone else. I’m just congratulating myself on just going in and scoring on every board.

“Every game is physical. I mean, that’s a physical team right there. But the SEC is a physical conference, as well. It was kind of the same. Physical is physical (smiling).

Holmes is grateful for the fan support so far from home.

“Well, our Bulldogs travel,” she said, “and they made it feel like home. We were able to give them something that they wanted to see.

“I really don’t look at numbers. But, I mean, credit to my teammates. I know he doesn’t want me to turn the ball over, and that’s a big thing for him. I come out and focus on not turning the ball over, giving my teammates the ball at certain times. Just scoring when I need to …. “

Schaefer backs McCowan on the physical pay at center.

“ You know, it's hard to deal with T one-on-one. You got to bring help from somewhere. A lot of times there were three people around her tonight.

“T has really gotten smart. I give the kid a lot of credit. She’s developed mentally in understanding what she can and can't do, whereas, hey, let's just say a month and a half ago, she was a bull in a china cabinet that night we played in Missouri and got beat. She’s learned from that night.

“Not many seniors in the middle of their senior year humble themselves and go, ‘You know what, I got to change.’ She has. So you got to give that kid credit.

“ So I think for her, you know, it is physical. She's a big girl, and it’s hard to deal with her. So there were times out there early she was down on all fours, didn’t get up right away.

“The thing for her, she’s had all the shots she can take in her back. She can’t have any more. She’s been pushed around, beat on for four years. Our trainer, Julie, she really has to do a great job with the other stuff, and Julie does.

“Again, it’s nothing that we’re not used to. I think for me, as I told her tonight, I called her in and I said, ‘Hey, I'm going to coach you until we're done, you can't get emotionally involved or get in some kind of mouthing with your opponent. 

“You’ve got to keep your cool because, again, you get an unsporting foul, a technical foul, that counts as a personal foul. We just can’t do that.

“T knows that. She knows that. But it’s a challenge sometimes, you know.”

As for what was exchanged in the handshake line, Schaefer said, “ I think one of her kids and T might have said some things to each other going through the line. 

“I corrected T as soon as we went in the locker room. Before I said anything to my team, I called T in, we met. 

“Again, I’m not mad, I’m just trying to teach her, trying to coach her, just like Charli is coaching and teaching her kid. That’s who we are. We try to run a classy program.

“Those kids, they’re in the moment. Those kids are competing against each other. It’s two great kids. You get in the moment, again, my job is to coach my kids and my team and teach ‘em, Hey, you can’t go there. You can’t.

"My message to Teaira and my team is that people -- the real life lesson here is that people know what your stats say, they know you can play, they know you’re a student-athlete, they got that. 

“People in the real world at the professional level, whether it’s basketball or being in the professional workplace, they want to know what kind of person you are, what’s your character like.

“You don't ever want anybody to question that. Maybe somebody in the arena sees that, they might get a bad opinion, which isn’t true. 

“So we're both – (the other coach) and I talked before I came in here. We both agree, we’re coaching our kids, we’ve already corrected them, and we move on.

“I’m just so proud of her. Again, the growth, the maturity of her, the course of her career at Mississippi State, really special. It’s tough. It’s hard. Y’all saw. It’s like that most nights in our league, too."