Bulldogs suffer heartbreaking overtime loss to Texas in home finale

Mississippi State has been quite inconsistent at home this season when it comes to league play. Unfortunately, that trend continued throughout the season and finished that way in Tuesday’s final regular-season home game.

Tramon Mark had 24 points and Tre Johnson added 23 to lead Texas to an 87-82 upset in overtime over No. 25 Mississippi State at Humphrey Coliseum. Mark and Arthur Kuluma both hit two free throws in the final 21 seconds of overtime to secure the road win for the Longhorns.

Mark and Johnson were a combined 10 of 15 from 3 point territory for the Longhorns (17-13 overall, 6-11 in the SEC. Kaluma and Kadin Shedrick each had 10 points for Texas.

Josh Hubbard had 16 points to lead Mississippi State (20-10, 8-9). RJ Melendez had 15 points for the Bulldogs while KeShawn Murphy finished with 13. Riley Kugel and Cameron Matthews each had 12 for the Bulldogs and Shawn Jones had 10.

Texas held Hubbard scoreless in the first half and limited the Bulldog sophomore guard to just one shot attempt.

“They obviously had a really good gameplan against Josh in terms of limiting his touches when he had the ball,” said Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans. “They were trapping and staying with the ball screen until he threw out of it and were actually doing that to a quite bit of our guys in the first half.

“We got to do a better job earlier of figuring out how to adjust to something like that and get him more opportunities. But they did a good job with that.”

Mississippi State finished the second half on a 11-2 run and sent the game into overtime thanks to Kugel’s layup with nine seconds remaining. Mark missed a deep 3 point attempt for Texas at the regulation buzzer.

Texas jumped out to a 76-71 lead in overtime and maintained that five-point margin for much of overtime. State managed to fight back and tied the game at 82-82 thanks a 3 point play by Kuge with 38 seconds left.

Shedrick made one free throw six seconds later to give Texas the lead for good, 83-82, and then Kugel missed two free throws with 21 seconds left. The Longhorns iced the game with four made free throws the rest of the extra session.

As expected, it was an emotional setback for the Bulldogs and Melendez was displaying his emotions in the postgame press conference. Jans noted that was the case with the entire locker room afterwards.

“They care about each other,” said Jans, whose team finished with a 4-5 SEC home record. “They care about their craft. They care about this team. They want to win and I told you guys before how much I believe in this team, the parts of it. We’ve got unbelievable kids that sweated, grinded and come to work every single day and allowed us to coach them.

“When it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it hurts. Our locker room is very somber, to say the least, and we’ve lost plenty of games this year. But that was a hard one to swallow for all of us.”

For the game, State shot 40% from the field and made just 6 of 25 beyond the arc. The Bulldogs were 22 of 28 at the foul line and had 12 turnovers. Texas shot 48% from the field and made 11 of 23 from 3 point territory. The Longhorns were 14 of 23 at the line, had 16 turnovers and outrebounded the Bulldogs 42-39.

“They were just switching,” Jones noted of Texas’ defense. “I feel like we just didn’t do enough moving on our part. That is something we have to work on.”

Texas closed the first half on an 11-0 run and held a 37-32 halftime advantage. The Longhorns shot 41% from the floor in the first half and made 3 of 12 beyond the 3 point arc. Texas made 6 of 8 from the foul line and outrebounded Mississippi State 21-20 in the first half.

Mississippi State shot just 37% in the first half and made 5 of 13 from 3 point territory. The Bulldogs were 5 of 7 from the line and had eight turnovers.

In order to break even in the conference, State must grab another SEC road win this weekend when the Bulldogs travel to Arkansas. State is 4-3 in SEC road games this season.

“Arkansas, time to move on to the next one,” said Melendez, who also had eight rebounds, three assists and three steals. “That game is over. We just got to get ready for a tough road win and looking forward to it.”

Up next

Mississippi State at Arkansas on Saturday with an 11 a.m. tip-off – The Bulldogs conclude the regular season on the road with a another chance to improve NCAA Tournament seeding.