The fact that Carly Thibault was headed through the Chick-fil-A drive-through for her dinner earlier this week (Cobb salad) way past dinner time … the fact she met her fiancé, Blake DuDonis, the assistant coach of an opposing team at the time, while both were recruiting at a tournament in Ohio … pretty much sums up Thibault’s basketball life.

It’s not that Thibault’s dad, Mike, the former head coach of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun and now of the Washington Mystics, didn’t warn Carly and her brother Eric about the perils of coaching. Sometimes you move, sometimes you get fired, sometimes you eat Chick-fil-A for dinner at 8:30 at night.

But Thibault chose it anyway, the only thing she ever considered, really.

Thibault, 25, is in her first season as an assistant coach and the recruiting coordinator for the Mississippi State women’s basketball team.

That means she’s a part of one of the most storybook tales of the 2016-17 season. The Bulldogs, under head coach Vic Schaefer, are ranked fourth in the country. Prior to Monday’s loss at Southeastern Conference rival South Carolina, televised on ESPN2, Mississippi State (20-1, 6-1) was the only unbeaten team in the nation aside from UConn.

Thibault, a 2009 graduate of East Lyme High School, is in the midst of the story coming out of Starkville, Miss., the continued rise of the Bulldogs program.

That’s what hard work will bring.

“She’s an absolute perfectionist about preparation,” Mike Thibault said, listing his daughter’s strengths as a coach. “If that means you’re going to be there at 5 a.m. because you have something to do, hey, that’s what you do. … I was a mediocre player and I loved the game. Coaching was my way to continue in it. I don’t know; it’s one of those things.”

“I feel so blessed to even be here in the first place,” Thibault said. “Coach Schaefer makes sure … he keeps everybody grounded. He tells everyone, ‘Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.’ People may be saying we’re the best thing since sliced bread, but we still know we have a lot of work to do. I just want to keep working and getting better, to do my part in it all.”

Thibault arrived in Mississippi following a two-year coaching stint at Eastern Michigan, where the Eagles finished 22-12 and earned a berth in the Women’s NIT last season. Prior to that, during the 2013-14 school year, she began her collegiate coaching career at Florida State as the director of recruiting operations.

She is a 2013 graduate of Monmouth University, a guard who finished her career there with 166 3-point field goals, third in program history.

She majored in psychology, but she says she always planned on coaching.

“I always wanted to be around the game, even when I was little,” Thibault said. “I didn’t sleep well when I was a little kid so I would go sit on the floor with my dad and watch film. I honestly never wanted to do anything else.

“I saw him get up every day and love what he did. When you get paid to be in a gym and be around the players and be around the game, that’s pretty special.”

•••

Thibault never had a lack of opportunity to be around the basketball life.

She’s seen her dad, a former NBA assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Chicago Bulls (during the time the Bulls drafted Michael Jordan) and Milwaukee Bucks, interact with legends. Mike Thibault was an assistant coach with the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team which won the gold medal in Beijing in 2008, a memorable trip her family took together. She has seen her dad, now the head coach and general manager of the Mystics, win more games than any other coach in WNBA history (257).

Her mom, Nanci, made moving fun, Thibault said. She and her brother never knew anything different.

The love for the game stuck.

While Mike is in the midst of the WNBA’s free agency period, Eric has been an assistant coach with the Mystics since 2013. Carly made her way into the profession, as well.

“I wanted to make sure they knew what they were getting into,” Mike Thibault said. “If you’re in this long enough, you’re going to have some pretty down times, too. Sometimes it’s your fault, sometimes it’s not. You have to understand there’s going to be a lot of emotional swings. You have to develop a little bit of a thick skin; you have to have some toughness.

“I think if I tried to show them anything, it’s that you get through stuff like that, both as an athlete or a coach. Your job does not define you as a person. People are going to like you, don’t like you, think you're good, think you're bad depending on whether your team won or lost. You can’t judge yourself that way."

If she has a question of how to handle something, her dad is first on Thibault’s list. Her brother is second.

“I think first and foremost I’m just passionate about what I do,” Thibault said. “I get up every day with energy. I’m always going to give it my all. I’m persistent. I keep going; I keep going ’til I get it right.”

•••

Starkville, Miss., is a passionate sports town, home of Mississippi State, nicknamed “Hail State” after the school’s fight song. The baseball team has a storied history, making nine appearances in the College World Series (alums include Jonathan Papelbon and Rafael Palmeiro). The football stadium holds 61,337 fans, many of whom wield cow bells (Carly got Mike one for his birthday).

Schaefer, the former associate head coach at Texas A&M, including as a member of the Aggies’ 2011 national championship team, was hired to coach at Mississippi State to start the 2012 season.

In 2016, the Bulldogs won a program record 28 games under Schaefer, falling only to eventual champion UConn in the Sweet 16.

This season, Mississippi State has won games from Orono, Maine, to Honolulu, Hawaii, with stops in Ames, Iowa, Los Angeles and Knoxville.

“He is a family man through and through,” Thibault said of Schaefer. “He’s intense. He coaches hard. He gets the most out of everybody. I’m learning so much just in the seven or eight months since I’ve been here.

“He gives you the freedom to do your job. I feel empowered to do what’s right. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t learn something about myself. I still have a lot to learn.”

Thibault moved to Connecticut in 2003 when Mike was hired to coach the Sun, a position he held through the 2012 season. Arriving in Connecticut as an aspiring gymnast, it was upon her arrival in the Northeast that she began to embrace basketball more thoroughly.

Thibault was a member of the East Lyme High School team which was Class L runner-up in 2008 and returned to the quarterfinals in 2009.

She was never one for headlines, which perhaps gives her a little insight as a coach: how to battle through injury, how to persevere through adversity.

“It’s always helpful to be able to talk to them in their language,” said Thibault, who will be married to DuDonis on May 6 in North Carolina. “I knew what it took to get to the other side.

“(My dad) obviously touched a lot of different players lives. Relationships are the reason to do it. The lasting thing is that you’re going to have a relationship with players. I’m helping student-athletes figure out the rest of their lives."

v.fulkerson@theday.com