Hot-shooting Butler hands State its first loss, 87-77
Jahmyl Telfort had 24 points and Pierre Brooks had 22 points and nine rebounds to lead Butler to an 87-77 victory over Mississippi State on Friday in the Arizona Tipoff championship game.
The setback was State’s first loss of the season as the Bulldogs dropped to 6-1 on the season. It also marked the first loss in an MTE event under head coach Chris Jans. Butler improved to 6-1 on the season.
“Very disappointed,” said Jans. “We never could get our defense going. We had a few possessions here and there but we never established ourselves on that end of the floor. The easy thing to say is they out-shot us. But that’s not how I looked at it. We did a lot of things that allowed them to get really good looks at the basket.
“We struggled guarding the basketball and we had multiple guys that just weren’t in the right spot, defensively. It comes back to guarding the ball and it always does.”
Riley Kugel and Josh Hubbard both had 22 points to pace State’s scoring. Cameron Matthews had 14 for the Bulldogs while Michael Nwoko had a season-best 11 points. KeShawn Murphy had six points and a game-high 12 rebounds for State, as well.
Landon Moore also finished in double digits for Butler with 13 points while Kolby King had nine points and seven boards.
State fell behind by 11 points midway through the second half before making one final push. Cameron Matthews finished off an 11-2 run for State with an old-fashioned 3 point play, cutting the Butler advantage to 70-68 with 6:22 left in regulation.
Matthews would have a shot to tie the game only to miss inside the lane. Butler then responded with an 11-2 run of their own to put the game on ice.
“At the end we gave up too much penetration,” Jans noted. “We just couldn’t string stops together. It looked like momentum was changing and we were going to get the lead. We had some crucial possessions there where we got back in it but we couldn’t get enough stops.
“Our traps were really good in the first half and that wasn’t hurting us at all. In the second half they started cutting two people instead of one and that gave us some problems. We hadn’t seen two cutters so far and they certainly game-planned for us.”
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Butler made 12 of 22 from 3 point territory and shot 53% overall from the field. Butler was also 19 of 27 at the charity stripe and 14 turnovers on the night. Butler held a decisive 44-33 advantage on the boards, including nine offensive rebounds.
State shot just 38% from the floor and made just 7 of 27 beyond the 3 point arc. State was 18 of 21 at the foul line and had six turnovers.
In the first half, both teams took turns with the lead before Butler started to extend its lead late in the half. Butler would lead by as many as eight in the closing minutes of the first half and led 40-34 at halftime.
Butler made 7 of 12 from 3 point range in the first half and also made 11 of 12 at the line. Meanwhile, State shot just 33% from the floor in the first half and made just 1 of 14 beyond the 3 point arc.
“Offensively in the first half I felt like we weren’t getting enough paint touches,” added Jans. “We weren’t getting inside-out shots. Then all game long we were frustrated with our defensive effort.”
Up Next
Mississippi State vs. Pittsburgh on Wednesday at Humphrey Coliseum with an 8:15 p.m. tipoff. The Dogs and Pitt face each other in the SEC/ACC Challenge. Pittsburgh is 7-1 overall this season with the lone loss coming at Wisconsin.
