Vic Schaefer had been in the coaching business a long time when he took over at Mississippi State in 2012. He knew what it would require to build a consistently competitive program there, just as he had helped his good friend Gary Blair do at Arkansas and Texas A&M as an assistant coach.
But on top of all that knowledge and experience, having a little geographical luck didn't hurt, either. When Schaefer got the Bulldogs job, the player who would turn out to score more points than any girl in Mississippi state high school history -- 5,745 -- was a prep sophomore: Victoria Vivians, a 6-foot-1 guard from Carthage.