By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

JACKSON — It seems almost unbelievable, but yet here it is.

When what is just the second Class 7A girls state basketball championship ever tips off here at The Mississippi Coliseum Thursday night, the Biloxi Lady Indians won’t be in uniform.

Well, they might be somewhere, but not here where it counts in the “Big House”.

After going an impressive 29-1 leading up to its trip to the overall Class 7A Final Four, including 23-0 against competition from the state of Mississippi, and after accomplishing what was perhaps the best overall season in Lady Indian program history, BHS will be watching from afar as Starkville takes on Olive Branch at 6 p.m., in the title tilt.

Monday morning, Starkville proved the old axiom that sometimes “the best offense is a good defense” correct as the defensive, grind-it-out basketball style of the Lady YellowJackets resulted in the end of the special season for the top-ranked Lady Indians one game short of the state finals with an ugly 23-16 loss in the Class 7A Final Four.

Head coach Devin Hill’s Biloxi squad was the prohibitive favorite to claim the first girls state title for the “Southern Six” since Bay High went 36-0 in 2013 behind Christa Reed to capture to Class 4A crown.

But instead, it’s Starkville playing for its sixth overall state title while Tupelo vies for its third after nipping Northwest Rankin 62-61 in the other semifinal Monday. The 16 points was the fewest Biloxi has scored in a game in veteran head coach Devin Hill’s nine years at the helm of the Lady Indians.

Biloxi came into this season having never even appeared in a state championship game. But surely, after adding talented guard Jayla Carriere, who transferred in from Region 4-7A rival Harrison Central, to join classmate and sophomore standout center Zaniyah Johnson in the line-up this would be the year, right?

Nope.

Monday’s game started getting away from the Lady Indians in the second quarter, after a blistering start that saw them convert 5 of 6 shots from the field, and build an 11-1 lead after the first quarter.

But Biloxi scored just 3 points in the second quarter, they were held scoreless in the third quarter and scored just one lonely field goal in the fourth quarter.

Hill refused to meet the media following the game, saying simply, “we’ll have nothing to say today.”

And, really, there wasn’t much he could say after Biloxi posted its lowest offensive output in almost two decades in one of the biggest games in the 100-year history of the program. Starkville beat the Lady Indians at the slow pace both teams chose to employ, and Hill didn’t help his team’s cause by holding the ball for three minutes in the third quarter, then getting nothing out of the stall game.

And in the end, Biloxi still sits on the outside looking in as yet another state title is handed out at the “Big House”.

And it didn’t really matter if Hill had anything to say or not when the most successful season in program history ended in stunning fashion. After all, Starkville had the last word.