The Mississippi State women are back in the Big Dance for the second straight year and will be dancing at home in the first round.
For the first time ever, Starkville will host the first two rounds of the NCAA Women’s Tournament on Friday and Sunday. No. 15 MSU is hosting as a No. 5 seed and will take on 12th-seeded Chattanooga Friday at 1:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
“I knew we were going to be in. It was just a matter of who and where,” said MSU coach Vic Schaefer. “It is really exciting to see us playing at home. That really is the overwhelming factor.”
Hosting the tournament is just one of several firsts for the MSU women this season. The others are: beating Tennessee, earning a school-record No. 6 ranking nationally and tying for second in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
Also invading Humphrey Coliseum will be No. 4 seed Michigan State (24-8) and 13th-seeded Belmont (24-8). Those two teams will meet Friday at 11 a.m.
The second-round game will be played Sunday at 1:30 p.m., with the winner advancing to the Sweet 16 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Top-ranked and three-time defending national champion UConn is the No. 1 national seed paired in that bracket.
Normally, a fourth-seeded team would host the first and second rounds, but the Lady Spartans’ arena, the Breslin Student Events Center, is hosting the Michigan high school girls basketball state finals.
“They’re a great team, well coached and are going to come on the road and probably have a little chip on their shoulder,” Schaffer said of Michigan State.
But MSU has to win on Friday before it can worry about the Lady Spartans.
“You’re going to play somebody good,” Schaefer said. “It doesn’t matter, it’s the NCAA Tournament. We’ve our work cut out for us.”
MSU is making its eighth appearance in the NCAA Tournament and second under Schaefer. The Lady Bulldogs are 7-7 all-time at the event, with its best finish coming in 2010, when they advanced to the Sweet 16.
Mississippi State made it to the second round last year in Durham, North Carolina, as a No. 5 seed. After defeating Tulane 57-47, the Bulldogs were dispatched by host Duke 64-56.
MSU enters the NCAA Tournament at 26-7 on the heels of a runner-up finish in the SEC Tournament. The Lady Bulldogs are 14-2 at home this season, with their only losses coming against No. 3 South Carolina (57-51) and No. 12 Kentucky (83-60).
“Our team is playing well at the right time of year, and we’re getting healthy,” Schaefer said. “I really like where we are right now.”
Tickets for individual games and for the entire weekend are already on sale. They can be purchased at hailstate.com/tickets.
Mississippi State fans set a state record for attendance for a women’s basketball game with 10,626 fans against South Carolina earlier this season.
