No. 22 State gets aggressive and knocks off No. 19 Ole Miss on the road, 81-71

OXFORD – In February, a lot of games are determined by which team has more urgency. On Saturday evening at Ole Miss, that turned out to be Mississippi State. The Bulldogs used solid defense and a balanced scoring attack to turn away Ole Miss, 81-71, at The Pavilion to grab a much-needed road SEC win.

No. 22 State improved to 18-7 overall and 6-6 in the SEC, including a 4-2 SEC road record while No. 19 Ole Miss dropped to 19-7 and 8-5. It also finished off a season sweep of the Rebels for the second time in three years.

“It was just their togetherness,” said Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans said afterwards. “Most coaches across the country always talk about that, especially when you go into a tough road environment. I thought our kids embodied that today. Certainly, I was concerned about this game and just thought Ole Miss was playing better than we were and were coming off two good wins. But our kids found a way to get it done on the road.”

RJ Melendez paced State with 17 points while Josh Hubbard added 14 for the Bulldogs. RIley Kugel had 11 and Claudell Harris and KeShawn Murphy each had 10 points. Murphy also finished with eight rebounds as did Cameron Matthews.

“We’ve been working on staying together and staying as a team,” said Melendez. “When things got hard we just kept chipping away and keep going. That was the main thing.”

Jans switched up his starting lineup against Ole Miss for the first time since the McNeese State game on December 14th. Kugel got his sixth start of the season and the Bulldogs managed to make it work on the road again.

“We came out with aggressiveness,” said Murphy. “It was just us being resilient. It was just us being together and that was the name of the game. Jans isn’t going to change and he’s going to preach how he wants his style of basketball. We played our role. Defense wins games.”

Leading by seven at the half, Mississippi State kept the pressure on the Rebels early in the second half and quickly built the lead to double digits. After a technical foul on Jaemyn Brakefield, Kugel made two free throws to put State up 62-46 and the Rebels never really threatened the rest of the way.

For the game, State shot 43% from the field and made 7 of 27 from 3 point range. The Bulldogs were 18 of 27 at the foul line, had 13 turnovers and dominated the glass, 48-36. Ole Miss shot 38% from the field and made 6 of 24 beyond the arc. The Rebels were 19 of 26 at the line and had 11 turnovers.

“It was better,” said Jans of his defense after improving to 5-1 all-time against Ole Miss. “I don’t know how much of it was them or us. But we’ve gotten a lot of criticism for our 3 point defense and rightfully so. But tonight it was obviously much better.”

Jaylen Murray led Ole Miss with 14 points and Sean Pedulla added 13. Brakefield also finished in double digits with 10 points and Malik Dia had nine points and eight rebounds for the Rebels.

“Not taking anything away from Mississippi State,” said Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard. “They have great role definition. It’s a winning team. Who brought their ‘A’ game? This team (Ole Miss) wasn’t well coached today.”

The Rebels hit 4 of their first 5 attempts beyond the arc to race to an 18-11 advantage in the opening minutes. But the Bulldogs answered with a 10-4 run and got within 24-23 following a Kugel jumper.

Mississippi State then closed the half on a 10-2 run, including eight from Harris, to take a 40-33 advantage at halftime.

State shot 52% in the opening half and made 5 of 14 from 3 point territory. The Bulldogs were 5 of 6 from the foul line, had eight turnovers and outrebounded Ole Miss 22-12 in the half. Ole Miss shot 39% from the field and made 4 of 10 beyond the 3 point arc. The Rebels were 7 of 11 at the charity stripe and had five first-half turnovers.

Up next

Mississippi State vs. Texas A&M on Tuesday with 6 p.m. tip-off at Humphrey Coliseum (SEC Network) – Another SEC Top 10 foe visits The Hump on Tuesday in the first and only regular-season meeting this year between the Bulldogs and Aggies.