Pirate Galaxy » than the rest of us. And thats really whe

JACKSON, Miss. -- Mississippi States Drew Davis -- a walk-on who had played three minutes all season until Monday night -- gave a little fake and a shake before letting a 22-footer fly in the waning minutes of a blowout win over Southern Mississippi.Of course, it splashed through the net. The starters danced and celebrated on the bench for another 3-pointer that found its way home.For the Bulldogs, it was just that kind of night.Mississippi State made a school-record 17 3-pointers on the way to an 86-44 victory in a neutral-site game at the Mississippi Coliseum. The Bulldogs made 17 of 29 (58.6 percent) attempts from behind the arc, burying Southern Miss under an avalanche of offense.Quinndary Weatherspoon led Mississippi State with 16 points. Lamar Peters added 15.Mississippi State coach Ben Howland said the Bulldogs were very good on both ends of the court.I was really pleased with how we played tonight, especially defensively, Howland said. Everything starts and ends with our defense. The unselfishness from our team the way we passed the ball and obviously 17 of 29 from three is really special.Mississippi State (7-3) never trailed and had a comfortable lead for most of the night. The Bulldogs turned a reasonable game into a full-scale blowout early in the second half thanks to a 35-0 run that pushed their advantage to 76-29.That was a first for me, Weatherspoon said.Southern Miss (3-6) shot just 23.1 percent (15 of 65) from the field. The Golden Eagles missed 19 consecutive shots during Mississippi States 35-0 run.Their speed -- they just took us out of everything, Southern Miss coach Doc Sadler said.Raheem Watts led the Golden Eagles with nine points. The Golden Eagles have lost five straight games and have only one win this season over a Division I opponent.The only thing I know to do is put your head down, grind, work and try to get better on the practice court, Sadler said. Thats what weve got to do.Mississippi State jumped out to a 16-4 lead in the opening minutes and cruised to a 39-25 halftime advantage.BIG PICTURESouthern Miss: The Golden Eagles struggled to score consistently against the bigger Bulldogs. Southern Miss hasnt won a game in nearly a month and this loss was particularly ugly.Mississippi State: The Bulldogs young roster continues to show promise. Xavian Stapletons return from knee surgery -- he scored eight points in 11 minutes on Monday -- gives Mississippi State a deeper rotation.Stapleton hadnt played in a game in 18 months because of two consecutive knee surgeries. The 6-foot-6 guard should be a valuable backup for the Bulldogs as they approach SEC play.TOTAL DOMINATIONMississippi State had a 46-37 advantage in rebounding, an 11-1 advantage in blocked shots and a 9-6 advantage in steals. Freshman Schnider Herard had a career-high 12 rebounds.UP NEXTSouthern Miss plays San Diego State in the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic on Thursday.Mississippi State hosts Morehead State on Thursday.HARTFORD, Conn. -- University of Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma once explained the roots of dominance with the quip that his teams success came down to some simple math. Those Huskies had Diana Taurasi. Other teams did not. Caesar had Veni, vidi, vici. Auriemma had that.But Connecticut didnt have a Taurasi this time. And in Kelsey Mitchell, Ohio State did.In the end it didnt much matter. The result was the same as the previous 84 games. Connecticut came, it saw, it conquered.Mitchell put on an All-American show with 19 points in the first half, a total that might have doubled if degree of difficulty mattered on the same court Taurasi, Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart each commanded. Connecticut nonetheless sent the crowd home happy with an 82-63 win.Were maximizing what we have right now, Auriemma said of his new-look team after four consecutive titles. Ten-and-0, we beat some pretty good teams. Weve taken advantage of what we have and weve tried to hide what we dont have.Set against the backdrop of the states capital city, with its downtown that changes only upon the closest of inspection, there is a certain sameness to basketball in Connecticut. Two years to the day before Mondays win, the Huskies beat a pretty good DePaul team by 34 points. That came not quite two weeks after a win at Notre Dame in the rare game against a higher ranked foe.Sound familiar?Six years ago to the day, the Huskies beat Ohio State by 31 points in Madison Square Garden. That also happened to be Connecticuts 88th win in a row, the same number of consecutive wins as the UCLA mens team once put together for John Wooden decades before.The more things change ...So when these Huskies, despite air balls from their two leading scorers on the opening two shots, jumped to a 19-7 lead at the XL Center, it was a Bill Murray in Punxsutawney kind of vibe. But by the time Mitchell hit a high-arcing 3-pointer to beat the first-quarter buzzer, a shot she launched from several steps beyond the 3-point line and watched with a follow-through held a few extra beats for style, Ohio State was in the midst of what would be an 11-0 run.The early Huskies run that so often finishes opponents didnt finish the Buckeyes. Every time the Huskies tried to pull away in the second quarter, Mitchell reeled them back in. It is the sheer audaciousness with which she tries to score that is mesmerizing. Step-back jumpers become jump-back. Drives become dances, Mitchell waiting, bouncing for a sliver to appear and then hurling her body into the smallest of openings. Just 2-for-14 in a foul-plagued game against the Huskies a season earlier, she drew a seasons worth of oohs and aahs from the stands.Shes impossible to guard, Auriemma said. Theres no shot she wont take, cant make, it seems like.Very good players have put up big numbers against Connecticut this season -- Baylors Alexis Jones and Florida States Imani Wright among them. And without Stewart around, you could make a case on talent that Notre Dames Brianna Turner or Baylors Nina Davis was the best player on the court when their teams played the Huskies. But it has been a long time, at least four years, since the best individual talent was so clearly not in a Connecticut uniform. That was different from years past.We knew that we had to make more stops, Katie Lou Samuelson said of the halftime message regarding Mitchell. But we knew overall that one player wouldnt beat us and we would have to play as a team and try and help out as much as we could whoever was guarding her. We just tried to make her take tough shots. Shes really good at making those, but that wass our game plan.dddddddddddd It worked better in the second half. I think we amped up the pressure a little bit and our help defense was really good.Mitchell more than once in the first half got a step on Kia Nurse, the kind of thing that feels as if it happens more like once a month to the Canadian Olympian and shut-down defender. So it was that Mitchell found herself shadowed by Crystal Dangerfield for much of the second half, the freshman not asked to shut down the All-American but make her work far from the basket while help from Gabby Williams, Nurse or others waited nearby.Mitchell scored just four points in the second half.She scored two points in the third quarter. Samuelson and Napheesa Collier combined for 25 points in the same span. Mitchell wasnt even the games high scorer. That distinction went to Collier with 27 points. Samuelson was next with 26 points. The same two players who began the game with air balls were ruthless in outscoring Ohio State in the second half all on their own.When Ohio State turned the ball over, Connecticut capitalized, turning 19 turnovers into 28 points. When the ball moved in half-court sets, it found its way into Samuelsons hands at the 3-point line or Colliers hands inside. They have scored as many points through 10 games as almost any pair of Connecticut players ever. But those points are the final product of an assembly line that involves every player on the court. It is the way every Connecticut team plays.Were held to a really high standard, Collier said. Not just basketball-wise because they understand youre going to make mistakes. Theyre not asking us to be perfect. But the intensity level that we have to be at and the level of focus that we need is just a lot different than I think at other places, certainly what Ive experienced.She isnt alone in that sentiment. Ohio State has now played Baylor, Connecticut and South Carolina this season, not to mention reigning national runner-up Syracuse. The gap in talent between the Huskies and the pack might have closed. But there is still a tangible efficiency gulf.They dont seem to miss a beat, McGuff said. Every possession theyre moving the ball, theyre executing, theyre cutting. They just do that better than anybody else in the country. They execute what they want to do better than the rest of us. And thats really where were all trying to catch them.And therein is the real essence of one of Auriemmas most famous lines. It wasnt just that Connecticut had the best player on the court when it had Taurasi (or Moore or Stewart in the years that followed). It is why Auriemma said Monday he doesnt believe any one player, no matter how good, will beat his team.Diana made everybody around her 10 times better than they were, Auriemma said. Thats why it didnt matter who we put out on the floor, we were going to win because, one, shes going to make every big shot; two, when youre open youre going to get the ball and; three, her will.So yeah, if we had to play against Diana, Id say theres one player out there that can beat us by themselves. But she never tried to win the game by herself.Baylor, Florida State, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Texas have now tried to solve the riddle. Maryland and South Carolina will get their shot soon enough.Were not going to win every single game for the rest of eternity, Auriemma said. Were going to get our ass beat by somebody.It didnt happen Monday, which made Dec. 19 feel much as it usually does in the Nutmeg State. ' ' '