No. 3 Florida uses 17-0 second-half explosion to blow past No. 22 Mississippi State, 81-68

It was the tale of two halves Tuesday night at Humphrey Coliseum. And the end result was another frustrating SEC home loss for Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans and the Bulldogs.

Denzel Aberdeen had a game-high 20 points and Walter Clayton added 19 points to lead No. 3 Florida to an 81-68 victory over No. 22 Mississippi State. The Gators used a game-defining 17-0 run to open the second half and cruised the rest of the way.

Thomas Haugh added 16 points for Florida (21-3 overall, 8-3 in the SEC) while Will Richard and Rueben Chinyelu each added 10 points. Josh Hubbard paced Mississippi State (17-7, 5-6) with 19 points while KeShawn Murphy had a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds.

“I just didn’t expect it,” said Jans. “In the first half we were frustrated with ourselves, offensively. I thought we set the tone, had a good defensive first half and rebounded the ball very well and that was a big goal for us. But for whatever reason, we were just out of sync in terms of all five guys when we were going from defense to offense.

“It wasn’t just one guy and it was frustrating for us. For whatever reason, we just got off to a horrible start (in the second half). Cameron (Matthews) getting his third (foul) in second or third possession certainly didn’t help and deflated some people. We just didn’t react very well to the start of the second half.”

Trailing by one at halftime, Florida exploded on a 17-0 run to open the second half and were never threatened the rest of the way. Jans called a couple of timeouts during Florida’s game-changing run but it didn’t slow down the Gators.

“I was just shocked at how we were playing,” added Jans. “We just didn’t have the type of urgency and the fight that we showed in the majority of the first half. We let a couple of made shots by them directly affect our energy in a negative way. At that point they had all the energy and the vibe.”

The Gators shot 46% for the game and made 14 of 36 from 3 point territory. The Gators were 11 of 17 at the foul line and had eight turnovers. Mississippi State shot 41% from the floor and made 7 of 27 beyond the 3 point arc. The Bulldogs had 15 turnovers and outrebounded Florida 43-32.

“Basically, they just came out more hungry than we did,” said Murphy. “We started off flat, got down on ourselves and it showed. We came out with a bad taste and they got the lead on us.”

The first half was back and forth with seven lead changes and five ties. Florida built an early 10-3 advantage in the opening minutes before Mississippi State took a 19-17 lead following two Claudell Harris free throws with 10:04 remaining in the first half. Mississippi State eventually took a 34-33 advantage at halftime.

Florida shot 37% in the opening half and made 6 of 20 from 3 point territory. The Gators were 5 of 7 at the foul line and had four turnovers. Mississippi State shot 36% from the floor in the first half and made just 2 of 15 beyond the 3 point arc. The Bulldogs were 8 of 10 at the charity stripe and had five turnovers in the half. Mississippi State outrebounded Florida 28-18 in the first half, including eight offensive boards.

Now State has to regroup quickly before facing another SEC ranked foe on the road. That next game is at rival Ole Miss and the Bulldogs hope to flush Tuesday’s disappointment as quick as possible.

“Just try out best to move on from this one,” Hubbard noted. “This will hurt, for sure, and got another tough one Saturday in Oxford. We have to go back to the drawing board and back square one, practice hard and get shots up. We can’t let this loss take on with us Saturday.”

Up next

Mississippi State at Ole Miss on Saturday with a 5 p.m. tip-off (ESPN or ESPN2) – The Bulldogs and Rebels finish off their season series this weekend after Mississippi State won the first meeting, 84-81, in overtime back on January 18th.