Disappointed Bulldogs hope to channel that in WBIT
As Mississippi State prepares for postseason play in women’s basketball, Thursday isn’t the tournament that the Bulldogs were hoping to be preparing for this week.
Shortly after the Bulldog men’s team had celebrated its selection to the NCAA Tournament across town at Two Brothers restaurant, coach Sam Purcell and his team gathered at Humphrey Coliseum to hear its fate. As the names came and went on the Selection Show and ultimately had the Bulldogs on the outside looking in, the coach challenged his team to channel that.
A Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament invite came several minutes later with State earning a No. 2 seed and a date with Georgia Tech at home on Thursday night. It’s a chance for the Bulldogs to continue to play basketball and, hopefully, finish the season strong.
“We’ve got a lot of disappointed young women because we thought we had a lot of criteria, but it is what is,” Purcell said. “Right now I’m excited because it’s all about competition. I don’t care if it’s rock, paper, scissors, cornhole, the NCAA Tournament or the WBIT, that’s the kind of program that I want when given the opportunity, we’re excited about it that we can compete.”
Of the positives ahead for State this week, the Bulldogs have a chance to host the first two home games if they’re able to win game one against the Yellow Jackets. There’s also the opportunity for some individual accolades as center Jessika Carter is just two games shy of breaking the all-time record for most games while Lauren Park-Lane needs just six assists to surpass Jazzmun Holmes for the most assists in a single season.
To get to those records, State will have to knock off a Georgia Tech team that was on the verge of doing some good things in 2023-24. Nell Fortner’s team was within five points of North Carolina and North Carolina State from the top 25 with the loss to a top 10 NC State team coming by one point in overtime.
It’s an interesting first round matchup beyond the competitiveness of the team because Purcell has ties to both the institution and its coach. Fortner had Purcell her Auburn staff as he was promoted from student assistant to her video coordinator in 2003-05. He later would coach at Georgia Tech from 2007-2013.
“We’ve got our work cut out,” Purcell said of Georgia Tech. “They finished 17-15 this year and they had five games where there was a five-point margin. That’s their season and if they finish those games they’re an NCAA Tournament team.
“Georgia Tech has a special place in my heart. I was there six years and Nell Fortner was the second coach to give me a chance behind Joe Ciampi. I know those kids at that institution because I worked there for six years. They’re blue collar, hard-working, have a lot of demands on them from an academic standpoint and they’re really good. It’s going to be an absolute war here at home.”
The Bulldogs enter the game in the final days of sixth year senior center Jessika Carter as well as several other seniors like Darrione Rogers, Park-Lane and Erynn Barnum. The good news for State is that Jerkaila Jordan announced her return for one final season earlier this week.
While next year’s team will take several months to be built, this year’s group has a chance to rewrite its story in a positive way.
“There’s disappointment for one because as a head coach you want to put your team in position and I thought we did that. You want to send your seniors out right. A lot of these kids came here for that opportunity,” Purcell said. “We were heartbroken but we had that conversation prior to the selection show. I’ve got a group of Bulldogs in there that love to compete and that’s what March is all about.”
Game time on Thursday night is 6:30 p.m. with the broadcast on the subscription-based ESPN+.
