'Years in the making': How Mississippi State volleyball reached its first NCAA Tournament

STARKVILLE — Julie Darty Dennis heard the naysayers before she took the job almost four years ago. The coaches from around the SEC warned her Mississippi State volleyball was a dead end, a pitfall.

“I was going to take this job and end my career here,” Dennis recalled opposing coaches telling her.

Dennis had spent four years leading Jacksonville, finishing eight games above .500 in 2017. The Bulldogs, meanwhile, had found little success in the past, middling near the bottom of the SEC each season. Since 1975, Mississippi State had managed to finish above .500 in just nine seasons.

But Dennis believed Mississippi State could become a volleyball school with the right buy-in, with players who shared the same vision Dennis had for what the program could achieve.

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So Dennis came to Starkville anyway, ignoring the cynics. And as the team sat watching the NCAA Tournament selection show on Sunday night, Dennis was validated.

The Bulldogs have broken just about every school record this season, surging from 5-15 in 2020 to 25-5 with a 16-2 SEC mark this year. Those results were capped by Mississippi State’s first NCAA Tournament berth in program history, with the first-round match set for Friday (6 p.m., ESPN+) in Seattle against Hawaii (21-7). Host Washington (24-4) is the No. 15 seed and plays Brown (20-5) in the other half of the bracket.

It’s what Dennis had hoped for when she accepted the position.

“I strongly believed there was so much potential in this place and in this program and in this town and in this community for volleyball to actually be relevant here,” Dennis said. “And for the longest time, I just wanted us to be relevant in the state, and then relevant regionally, and nationally.

“I took a risk in coming, and pouring my heart and soul into this program, and there were bumps along the way,” Dennis continued. “There have been a lot of sleepless nights and tears have been shed. But it’s one of those things where, if I didn’t take the risk, I think I would’ve regretted it for the rest of my life. I knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime, and it’s been amazing. We’ve really been able to thrive. I don’t feel like we’re just surviving; we’re thriving.”

Mississippi State was picked to finish 12th in the preseason SEC coaches’ poll. The Bulldogs had their own goals, although even the program-record 16 wins in the conference and 25 wins overall weren’t initially expected.

But Dennis first saw signs during a tournament at Georgia Tech, when Mississippi State beat Indiana and Oklahoma. That’s when the staff realized their players weren’t out of their depth with a challenging nonconference schedule.

And then to open SEC play, Mississippi State lost a five-set match to then-No. 17 Florida before bouncing back with a five-set win against the Gators the next night. The team had set a goal before the season to win 10 SEC matches, aiming to finish between eighth and 10th in the conference.

But as 10 conference wins came and went, Dennis and the players reassessed. They hold weekly meetings, discussing the records they’ve broken and the new goals on the horizon.

“This is a really driven group,” Dennis said. “They’ve set out the standards and the goals and the culture, and we’ve been working on that for four years. So while we’re having success this year, in my fourth season here, this started a really long time ago. This has been years in the making.”

Only Gabby Waden and Deja Robinson have been here for all four seasons of Dennis’ tenure. They’ve experienced the hardships that come with a 23-58 combined record in the first three years . They were the first to buy into Dennis’ vision.

Others have followed, helping make that vision a reality. But Dennis doesn’t want to stop now. If she did, she wouldn’t have wanted to come to Mississippi State in the first place.

“The vision has happened,” Dennis said. “Now what’s next? How do we sustain the success, how do we continue this and make sure this is not just a one-time thing where people go, ‘Oh, remember that year Mississippi State finished second in the league? That was such a fluke.’ This is something they understand we want to sustain for a really long time.”

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: How Mississippi State volleyball reached its first NCAA Tournament