COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Mississippi State's Teaira McCowan loves candy, and the 6-foot-7 center can eat more than the average person. Her go-to is Sour-Patch Strawberry. She also likes the Butterfinger Easter eggs that are out this time of year.
"If there is candy in a room, you have to watch her," laughed Mississippi State associate head coach Johnnie Harris, who is the mentor of the Bulldogs' post players. "Between her and Victoria [Vivians], they're going to grab it."
McCowan and Vivians shared most outstanding player honors at the Kansas City Regional, and they'll lead the Bulldogs against fellow No. 1 seed Louisville in the NCAA tournament semifinals on Friday (ESPN2, 7 p.m. ET) at Nationwide Arena. For McCowan, an espnW first-team All-American, this has been a journey that started in Brenham, Texas, and now has her and her teammates on the national stage of the Women's Final Four for the second year in a row.
Not bad for a kid who didn't really take up basketball until around junior high and said she used to just hide in her house and not go out much because she was self-conscious about her height.
"I hated it," McCowan said, looking back on her adolescent years, and how she has evolved to where she is now as a college junior. "But I really stopped caring about what people thought of me. I'm tall; I can't hide.
"Probably my senior year of high school, and into my freshman year of college, I knew I had to go to a whole different spot in the world, and I have to be who I am. I can't let anyone else tell me who I have to be. So I became ... me."
That person is one of the best players in the country; she has 27 double-doubles this season and is shooting 61.1 percent from the field, while averaging 18.1 points and 13.6 rebounds. But she is someone who also has a goofy, fun-loving side, enjoys photo-bombing her coaches and teammates, and is willing to speak her mind and be a vocal leader for the Bulldogs.
"That comes with confidence," Harris said. "She feels better about herself."
Harris first got to see McCowan when she was in eighth grade, and both Harris and Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer were still assistants at Texas A&M. Brenham is about 40 miles from College Station, and McCowan sometimes would attend Aggies games.
Schaefer and Harris left for Mississippi State for the 2012-13 season, and two years later, they had McCowan with the Bulldogs. McCowan referenced Starkville as a "whole different spot," and it is about 600 miles east of where she grew up. But she acknowledges that it's fairly similar to her hometown. What changed was her: McCowan learned better study habits in school, and in basketball, she focused on going to every practice ready to play at a high level. And she found her voice.
"She has a strong personality, and you can see that on the court. She's very passionate about what she's doing," said teammate Zion Campbell, a 6-3 redshirt sophomore. "It's hard to practice against her. She's strong, aggressive, likes to dominate on offense and defense. You have to work extra hard against her, but it's making me better.
"If she gets position, you can't move her. You just have to foul her. You have to use other things besides strength against her."
Louisville is well aware.
"Did you see her body?" Cardinals senior forward Myisha Hines-Allen said in admiration. "That's muscle. She's solid. I got a chance at USA Basketball trials to be on the same team as her. She's a phenomenal player."
McCowan came off the bench for all but seven games of her freshman and sophomore seasons. She averaged 6.6 points and 5.6 rebounds her first year, and fouled out of five games. Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw, whose Irish take on UConn in the second semifinal Friday (ESPN2, 9 p.m. ET), recalls some of the struggles her star center, 6-5 Ruth Riley, went through when she was a freshman back in 1997-98.
"I think it's about building their confidence, and playing to their strengths," McGraw said of coaching true centers. "They've always been the 'big kid,' and they never get the calls. So for us, a lot of it was building her up and saying, 'You're the one. We're going with you, whatever you can give me.' "
McCowan didn't have to carry as much weight on the court as early as Riley did, but the Mississippi State staff did look for ways to keep reassuring her. Even in the demoralizing 98-38 loss to UConn in the 2016 Sweet 16, Schaefer and Harris saw positive things from the then-freshman McCowan. She didn't back down.
And then she started to come into her own last season -- especially in the SEC and NCAA tournaments -- averaging 8.7 points and 7.1 rebounds. Harris did a lot of research about the best strategies for improving the play of centers, and much of it involved footwork and positioning. She and Schaefer implemented all of that with McCowan, who was very prepared for the four-out, one-in offense that the Bulldogs have used so successfully this season.
Schaefer said perhaps the best indication of how good McCowan has been is to look at the one game the 36-1 Bulldogs lost: the SEC tournament final in which she was in foul trouble early and didn't play much in the first half. The Bulldogs' offense and defense suffered without her.
"It's not just the shots that she blocks -- it's the ones she alters," Schaefer said. "It's the times you think you're going to dribble-penetrate, and you look up, and there's 6-foot-7 standing in the lane. And you go, 'I think I'll turn around here and get back out on the perimeter.' "
In the Kansas City Regional, both NC State and UCLA players talked about how being prepared through scouting for McCowan's strength was one thing, but actually facing it was another. She tied an NCAA tournament record for most field goals made without a miss against the Wolfpack, going 11-of-11. Then against UCLA, she had a career-high 21 rebounds. According to HerHoopStats, McCowan is second in the nation -- and the top player in this Final Four -- in offensive rebounding rate, grabbing 22 percent of her teammates' misses, and she is very good at converting for putbacks.
"There were times when she would just not be denied," Schaefer said of McCowan's work on the boards in the regional. "She has really become that Bill Russell type who understands angles and shots when they are coming off the rim. Her pursuit of the basketball has really become a staple for her. It's hard to get a body on her, and it's hard to move her."
Cardinals post players like 6-2 Hines-Allen and 6-3 Sam Fuehring aren't intimidated by facing McCowan, but they have a healthy respect.
"To guard someone that big, strong, and skilled -- it's going to take 40 minutes to do that," Fuehring said. "I probably have to find ways to annoy her a little. Being smaller than someone means I can kind of be the underdog. So if I can get her out of her game a little, that would mean I was doing my job."
Louisville coach Jeff Walz triumphed in one of the bigger upsets in NCAA tournament history in 2013 against a 6-8 center, then-senior Brittney Griner of Baylor. The Cardinals were a No. 5 seed then, unlike like this year's top-seeded ACC tournament champions. Still, the game plan to disrupt a big player's comfort zone could be similar.
"If your Plan A is not going to work, you have to have a Plan B," Walz said. "And with as talented a player as Teaira is, we're most likely going to have a Plan C, also."
Beth Burns, a strength and conditioning coach for Louisville who also serves as special advisor to Walz, is a longtime former head coach and assistant known for her defense. In facing McCowan, Burns said, the Cardinals have to consistently try to keep her from getting the ball in any of her sweet spots down low. Because once that happens, the chances of stopping her vanish.
"If someone that size and skill set gets a deep post-up, you could be the best defender in the world. It doesn't matter," Burns said. "You have to anticipate what's going to happen to try to not allow her to get there."
Of course, that's going to be a team-wide focus for the Cardinals, who also have scorers like Vivians (19.6 PPG) to contend with.
McCowan is used to being one of the targets of the opposing defense, as well as a player who anchors her own defense. She has steadily improved to get to this place, and she's ready for it. Plus, she now can give advice and support to younger players who might be struggling with their height or their confidence. She's happy to do that, because she's been there.
"I got the chance to come to college and find out who I really am," McCowan said. "And not just be stuck in a shell, wondering who I could become."