Miss. State on playing Oscar Tshiebwe: "He's got magnets in his hands."

Once he calmed down, Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans spoke about his team’s loss to Kentucky in the Hump. Among the problems he saw that led to a loss for the Bulldogs, Oscar Tshiebwe and Kentucky’s rebounding were too much to overcome, Jans said.

Mississippi State is usually a good team on the glass, averaging 37 per game with a positive rebound margin. But last night, the Bulldogs were held to 15 rebounds below their average as Kentucky won the boards, 38-22, in the game.

“That is the tale of the tape,” Jans explained afterward. “Listen, it is real easy for me or any other coach to talk about rebounding and try to get it on the floor. They are really good at it. We talked ad nauseam heading into the game, film, etcetera. It is one of those things that — I will have to watch the video — but not sure if we were checking at the level we needed to or not. I don’t know.

“But obviously, they were committed to the glass tonight, and they were really good. It starts with Tshiebwe, and he has been doing that for a long time.”

The SEC’s leading rebounder, Tshiebwe was matched up with the league’s third-leading rebounder, Tolu Smith, a battle Tshiebwe won handily. His 11 rebounds doubled Smith’s five and then some, and seven of Tshiebwe’s boards came on the offensive end. Kentucky scored 18 second-chance points in the win.

Mississippi State’s Cameron Matthews said of Tshiebwe, “He has got magnets in his hands. I don’t know how he does it.”

Tshiebwe also had a big scoring night with 18 points on an efficient 7-for-13 shooting from the field, including some makes from long range.

“I think making those shots early made him feel really good,” said Jans. “That is probably on me more than anybody else. I think he shoots 36%, 37% from the mid-range, and we were not overly — you have gotta stop it. We were more worried about him shot-fake and driving and everything else that he does. But that is not on our guys. That is on me. But when you see that ball go through the net, it makes you feel good. It gets you a little more juice, and I am sure that helped him attack the (rim) even more.”

Smith added, “We know he can shoot it. He is capable, but we were living with the results of those shots. If he shot five or six of those, it’s a good possession for us.”

On Kentucky’s 18-2 run in the second half

For Mississippi State, the game was lost when Kentucky responded to a momentum swing early in the second half. The Bulldogs landed two big punches by dunking on Adou Thiero on a fast break and then an and-one layup seconds later, only for Kentucky to punch right back with an 18-2 scoring run to take a 13-point lead.

When asked what went wrong in that eight-minute span, Jans replied, “They played really good, and we didn’t. We struggled on both ends. I thought as the game unfolded, in the early timeouts, my comments in the huddle were, ‘I love how we are playing on offense.’ It was as good of offense as we have played all year against an athletic, well-coached team and a team that we knew was gonna have the mindset of ‘must-win.’ We talked about it all week in preparation, talked about it today and we wanted to try to get our guys to exceed that mindset.

“But certainly had a bad stretch. I don’t know. They played really well, and we didn’t. I will have to watch the film and break it down.”