Women's Basketball SEC Schedule Released

[jdelta02]

Miss. State's 2019-20 Season's SEC Conference Schedule

Jan 2 (Thu), Florida
Jan 5 (Sun), at Georgia
Jan 9 (Thu), at Missouri
Jan 16 (Thu), LSU
Jan 20 (Mon), at South Carolina
Jan 23 (Thu), at Vanderbilt
Jan 26 (Sun), Ole Miss
Jan 30 (Thu), Auburn
Feb 3 (Mon), Georgia
Feb 6 (Thu), at Tennessee
Feb 9 (Sun), Texas A&M
Feb 16 (Sun), at Kentucky
Feb 20 (Thu), at Auburn
Feb 23 (Sun), Alabama
Feb 27 (Thu), Arkansas
Mar 1 (Sun), at Ole Miss

Miss. State has won 2 straight SEC Regular Season Championships, including going 35-1 in the process. Return 3 regular starters for this season (Jordan Danberry, Chloe Bibby, and Andra Espinoza-Hunter). Also add freshman sensation Rickea Jackson who headlines a very talented group of freshmen (Rickea Jackson, Jayla Hemingway, JaMya Mingo-Young, Aliyah Matharu). Add transfers 6-5 Promise Taylor from Ole Miss, and 6-6 Yemiyah Morris from Cochise College in Arizona. Other returnees include Myah Taylor, Xaria Wiggins, Jessika Carter, and Bre'Amber Scott

My sleeper pick out of the newcomers is the 6-6 center Yemiyah Morris. Also, very impressed her leaping ability, athleticism, and with the way she played against Australia's post players this summer. Showed very good offensive skills as well. Looked quick. Another sleeper is freshman guard JaMya Mingo-Young.

[Scared_Hitless]

We will win the SEC again. SC is the only challenge.

[Dawg2003]

This is a favorable schedule to win the SEC. Only play TAMU and South Carolina once. The conference race will probably be between us, SC, and TAMU.

[Captain Falcon]

A&M will contend this year. They are the most experienced team in the league. Kentucky and Arkansas are likely the next two teams after that. Tennessee will be interesting with a new coach. I think Mizzou takes a pretty big step back without Cunningham.

This is by no means an easy conference schedule. A lot of tough road games, whereas most of our toughest games last year were at home.

[StigsMcQueen]

In reading this, I am wondering if Coach Vic and Coach Johnnie may have actually gone a little too light on the non-conference slate.

If you bring up the final RPI numbers from last year:

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-women/d1/ncaa-womens-basketball-rpi

and then the opposing teams' numbers, you get the following:

Southern Miss. (RPI: 196)
Tennessee-Martin (RPI: 113)
Murray State (RPI: 263)
Troy (RPI: 92)
Jackson State (RPI: 247)
Marquette (RPI: 12)
Likely Three Games Against Some of These Seven:
- Stanford (RPI: 4)
- Syracuse (RPI: 10)
- Bowling Green (RPI: 219)
- Cal Baptist (RPI: 214)
- Green Bay (RPI: 69)
- Houston (RPI: 111)
- San Francisco (RPI: 252)
West Virginia (RPI: 80)
Louisiana (RPI: 269)
South Florida (RPI: 115)
Likely One Game Against Either:
- UNLV (RPI: 204) or
- Virginia (RPI: 97)
Little Rock (RPI: 61)

The trouble is that Marquette isn't going to be the same team with Hiedeman in the WNBA and the coach leaving for Penn State (they didn't have a lot of depth even with Hiedeman there). Also, although there's a possibility that MSU could face both Stanford and Syracuse and that would be good, as far as I can tell, there's no guarantee that will happen.

I realize that the non-conf. schedule was formed before they knew that Danberry was returning, and that their expectation was that Chloe, Andi, and Bre would be the leaders (with Chloe coming off the major surgery) and everyone else being basically newcomers (although Jess and Xaria do have solid experience). I could see where they would want to keep the degree of difficulty relatively soft at first, and then slowly ratchet it up as the newcomers gain experience.

However, with so many teams in top 12 overall in the midst of reloading, there's still a possibility that this team could be world beaters and have a legit shot at getting back to the Elite 8. In which case, you want to have as much ammunition in hand for the NCAA Selection Committee to work with as you possibly can.

So what do people think? Is the non-conf. slate too hard, too soft, or does it hit the sweet spot?

[Dawg2003]

Our non-conference schedule is bad. However, that's the norm with a lot of women's basketball teams. The truth is that there just aren't that many great women's basketball teams to schedule. I would like to see us schedule a few more top 100 RPI opponents though. I think it would be a good idea to get some home and aways with a middle of the road PAC 12 or ACC team. Throw in someone like VA Tech, Clemson, Arizona State.

I think this non-conference schedule is the result of him thinking the team would be really young and would need to develop chemistry and some confidence. We need to stay away from being a 4 seed because that would put us playing a 1 seed in the Sweet 16.