State looks to build off of top 10 win with road trip to Georgia on Sunday
There wasn’t much panic for Sam Purcell and a couple of his veteran players when Mississippi State lost its first two SEC games.
In Purcell’s first two seasons in Starkville, the coach started 1-2 in league play only to get back on track. With three top 15 opponents to start, it was going to be tough to find a win, but the Bulldogs (14-3, 1-2 SEC) bounced back on Thursday night.
State gave up over 90 points in each of the losses to Kentucky and South Carolina with losses by 20 points or more. The Bulldogs went 10 minutes without a made field goal against the No. 2 Gamecocks last week and saw an 11-point lead fade into a loss 95-68 loss.
Watching a 14-point lead escape against No. 10 Oklahoma after a 19-2 run, the Bulldogs found some juice on Thursday. 10 players scored in the game with Jerkaila Jordan notching 24 points, 16 of which came in the second half. It was the type of response that Purcell wanted.
“There’s a vision for this program and it’s ‘own it’,” Purcell said. “Own it that we’ve got a good team. Own it that we’ve got to go through adversity. Own it that there’s multiple people that can step up and be a special team in a hard league. For 10 (players) to score tonight, it shows how special we can become.
“This is a big win, but it can’t be the final rodeo. We learned that last year. We’ve got a lot of basketball in front of us.”
Jordan puts team on her back to earn win over Oklahoma
Jordan has been there and done this before. The fourth-year Bulldog has scored over 1,600 points in her career at State with a double digit scoring average every season. This year, Jordan is just off her record pace of 16.2 last year but is averaging 15.8 point and a career-high 6.6 rebounds per game this season.
Her leadership is what has been the biggest attribute during her time in Starkville and she kept the team upbeat after two tough ball games. On Thursday, they saw the results of their hard work and got back in the fight.
“It just gives us momentum. The first two losses, we could have hung our head, but we didn’t,” Jordan said. “We put that game behind them and are putting it one game at a time. We’re going to use this as momentum. We’re in the SEC and it’s one of the toughest conferences. You can lose two but win two just as fast.”
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As Purcell acknowledged, the pieces have been in place for State to be a contender in the league. The Bulldogs have four players averaging more than eight points per game as Eniya Russell puts up 13.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and has a team-best 3.9 assists a game. Madina Okot has added 11.6 points per game with 8.6 rebounds in her first year of collegiate basketball in the states.
Debreasha Powe is averaging 43% made 3-pointers with a team-best 32 long shots while Destiney McPhaul has been getting stronger off the bench with 8.3 points per game.
Those players helped the Bulldogs get a top 10 win on Thursday and still didn’t play their best basketball in the win and now they’ll try to keep the momentum. Georgia (9-8, 1-2 SEC) is next on the schedule and State will travel to Athens to take them on with a Sunday tip at 1 p.m. on SEC Network +.
The last trip to Athens wasn’t kind to Purcell and his team. State had one of its worst showings in Purcell’s tenure as a head coach and were blown out 62-34. The coach is hoping to avoid that kind of showing this time around.
“Last time I went there, I got my butt kicked,” Purcell said. “I’m from the state of Georgia and I’m going to tell all my family not to show up because you jinx me. They wanted me after the game and I told them I didn’t want to meet with them because I got beat by 30.
“This is why this league is so hard. We played an Oklahoma team that is run, run, run and Georgia is going to play a matchup zone and muck it up. They’re going to make it ugly. If we can keep the focus, keep the commitment and keep our blinders on then we can get to our destination come March.”