No. 22 Mississippi State hangs on to down Georgia on the road, 76-75
No. 22 Mississippi State overcame late missed free throws and held on to a 76-75 road win at Georgia on Saturday. It marked the third SEC road win for Mississippi State this season, who improved to 17-6 overall and 5-5 in the SEC.
Georgia dropped just its second home game of the season and fell to 16-8 overall and 4-7 in the SEC.
Josh Hubbard led State with 16 points while KeShawn Murphy added 14. Michael Nwoko had 11 points for the Bulldogs and Riley Kugel had 10. Silas Demary, who had a key turnover in the closing seconds, had a game-high 23 points for Georgia and Asa Newell had 16. Dakota Leffew had 12 for Georgia and RJ Godfrey had 10.
“It was the quite the game,” said Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans. “We survived a lot. We survived 6 of 18 from the free throw line. I know Asa Newell is a heck of a player but I don’t know if he’s made more than three 3 pointers in a game all year.
“Then we threw the ball away when all we had to do was make a couple of free throws and take it to the house. But I am proud of them. It’s been a long week. Georgia is a really good basketball team and we knew it would be a physical battle. Just glad for these guys to get that winning feeling again.”
Leading by eight at halftime, State saw Georgia score the first eight points of the second half to tie the game at 40-40. State managed to answer with its own 8-0 run and led 53-45 at the midway point of the second half.
The Bulldogs would not surrender the lead the rest of the way despite plenty of nervous moments. Newell scored five straight points to tie the game at 71-71 with 4:04 remaining. The Bulldogs took a 76-73 lead following an RJ Melendez dunk and then had to survive two missed 1 and 1s in the closing seconds before clinching the win.
“It means a lot,” said Cameron Matthews, who had six points and six assists. “We had a rough week after that bad performance last Saturday. We just had to work all week. Jans was on us real bad but we got a good group. I trust these guys with my life and I had no doubts we were going to come here and get a win.”
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For the game, State shot 55% from the field and made 6 of 20 from 3 point territory. State was only 6 of 18 at the line and had nine turnovers. State was outrebounded 32-31 but outscored Georgia 46-28 in points in the paint.
Georgia shot 46% for the game and made 8 of 21 from 3 point range. Georgia was 17 of 22 at the line and had 11 turnovers.
“We certainly talked ad nauseum about their size, their strength,” Jans added. “And their ability around the basket. Our guys took offense to it after awhile and got tired of hearing me talk about it. But getting paint touches for our basketball team was a huge goal coming into the game. We wanted to get a ton of paint touches and didn’t want to settle.”
In the early going, Nwoko handled the offense for State and scored the team’s first nine points of the game. The lead went back and forth for the first 10 minutes until back to back 3 pointers from Hubbard and Kugel gave State a 21-18 advantage. The Bulldogs later used a 7-0 run to build a 34-25 advantage before settling for a 40-32 halftime lead.
State shot 57% from the field in the first half and made 3 of 9 beyond the 3 point arc. State was only 3 of 9 at the foul line and had four first-half turnovers. State outscored Georgia 9-1 in points off turnovers and both teams had 15 rebounds.
Georgia shot 42% in the opening half and made 3 of 10 from 3 point range. The home Bulldogs made 9 of 12 at the line and had seven turnovers in the half.
Up next
Mississippi State vs. Florida on Tuesday with a 6 p.m. tip-off at Humphrey Coliseum – Another Top 10 SEC foe comes to Starkville on Tuesday with the 6th-ranked Gators.
