Kellenberger: Bulldogs showed up ready to win

DALLAS – The celebration lasted so long Friday night that some of the girls came back to the party.

Five minutes after Morgan William made the greatest shot in the history of Mississippi basketball — a jumper from the right elbow that beat the clock, ended UConn’s 111-game winning streak and sent Mississippi State to the national championship game with a 66-64 win — most of the players and assistant coaches had run through the tunnel and headed to the locker room.

But William was still out there, and so was coach Vic Schaefer. They talked to ESPN. They hugged their families, and as many of the thousands of fans that had filled up American Airlines Center as they could fit in their arms. They hugged the cheerleaders. They hugged Dak Prescott. They hugged everyone. No one wanted to leave.

And so Victoria Vivians led a line of girls back out of the locker room, around the corner, and said to no one and everyone, “Are we going to stay out here?”

Mississippi State did eventually leave the court. It had to. There’s a national championship game to get ready for, on Sunday against South Carolina.

What a sentence, right? What a thing. What a night.

A year ago Mississippi State played UConn and Vic Schaefer was showing his team the movie, "Miracle," about the United State's 1980 win against the USSR. He was talking about David and Goliath. He had to convince his team they could win. They lost by 60.

This year? None of that. The week was spent getting ready for the game, for the team's first Final Four matchup ever. Why not win? Why not play another game? They didn't need to be convinced of anything.

"We believed in our locker room it could happen," Schaefer said.

"It was personal," Vivians said.

Still, UConn is not going to give it to you just because you want it. Every night since November 2014, when that fabled winning streak that was the greatest accomplishment in all of sport continued, has proved that. If you’re going to take down the queen, you’re going to have to take it. And you better not miss.

So Mississippi State pounded UConn in the first 10 minutes, and led 22-13. The Bulldogs were crisp on offense, and flying everywhere on defense. They were so poised, and it rattled the Huskies.

It was an eight-point lead at halftime, and UConn had one offensive rebound. Mississippi State had 10. It had taken twice as many shots as UConn had, and had 12 second-chance points to the Huskies’ zero.

UConn’s first second-chance point gave it its first lead of the night, at 40-39. And from then out it turned into a fight. You take a shot. I make a shot. You get a stop. I get a stop. Mississippi State would get up by a little, and then UConn would go on a run. And then Mississippi State would get it all back.

Victoria Vivians made a 3-pointer with a little more than a minute left in regulation, at the very end of the shot clock, and it was 60-59. But Napheesa Collier, a 20-point-a-game scorer Mississippi State held to 11, made a free throw. William had a chance at the end of regulation, but she missed.

Earlier this week Texas A&M coach Gary Blair confided that if any team in this Final Four was going to beat UConn, it would be Mississippi State to do it. Stanford played the same style of the game as the Huskies, just not as well. South Carolina was not deep enough, too susceptible to foul trouble.

But the Bulldogs? They’d defend the hell out of the Huskies. They had enough scoring to keep UConn coach Geno Auriemma guessing where the play was going to go. And they were deep enough to handle it when the unexpected occurred.

So there was Mississippi State, playing the final four minutes of the game without Vivians, who led them with 19 points before fouling out. They spent several possessions after that trying to find their way, to no avail; only defense kept the game tied. But then William found Teaira McCowan over the top, and it was 64-62. They went back the other way, and the officials said there was a flagrant foul on Dominique Dillingham. Katie Lou Samuelson, one of the hot-shot sophomores entrusted with the UConn winning streak, stepped to the line and tied the game.

But as the seconds dwindled away, Dillingham gave it to William at the top of the key. She moved to her right. One dribble. Then another. Then a third. The defender was on her heels, and William rose up. Good.

“They,” Auriemma said, “were just better.”