State gets physical and blows past Ole Miss 83-71

With Wednesday’s rivalry game holding a lot of importance for NCAA Tournament resumes, it was Mississippi State taking the fight to Ole Miss. The Bulldogs started strong and closed strong in front of a rowdy crowd at Humphrey Coliseum and captured an 83-71 victory.

State’s defense held the Rebels to just 29.6% shooting in the second half and used a 15-2 second-half run to put away Ole Miss. With the win, the Bulldogs moved to 18-8 overall and 7-6 in the SEC while Ole Miss fell to 19-7 overall and 6-7 in the league.

“Obviously, we had too many turnovers at halftime,” said Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans. “And they scored 14 points off our turnovers. And they had a bunch of offensive rebounds and our defensive rebounding percentage was somewhere around 53%. They just got too many second-chance opportunities and that deflates the air out of your defense when that happens.

“Certainly, we tried to play physical, tried to get on the offensive backboards. That was a big part of our gameplan. We were struggling to defend them and it was frustrating. That is what we pride ourselves on. The second half I thought our defense was active. I thought Cam Matthews set the tone with big plays and hustle plays.”

The Bulldogs took over in the paint and outscored Ole Miss 42-24 in the paint, and had 39 free throw attempts. Tolu Smith did not start against Ole Miss but led the Bulldogs with 24 points. Jans said Smith not starting was “between Tolu and I”. In his starting spot, Jimmy Bell made his 15th start of the season and had six points and four boards in 14 minutes.

KeShawn Murphy and Shakeel Moore each had 12 points for State while Matthews scored 10 of his 11 points in the second half. Josh Hubbard was held to a season-low five points.

“The message was, following up that first 10 minutes of the first half and how we played then, just trying to get back to that again,” Matthews said. “Just trying to guard the ball and just staying in attack mode. I just took what the defense gave me.

“Overall, we’ve been playing with a little bit more confidence. And we are getting back to playing defense. In the beginning and early in the season, we were okay but we were not at our full potential. I feel like we are getting back to that kind defense we had last year.”

The second half saw Mississippi State scored the first six points to take a 46-44 advantage. Ole Miss battled back to take a brief 55-54 lead before Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard collected a technical foul. That sparked State as the Bulldogs exploded on a 14-2 run to grab control at 68-57.

Jans would also get a technical foul later in the half and Ole Miss managed to cut the deficit to 70-66 following two free throws by Flanigan with 5:30 remaining. But the Bulldogs closed out the game on a 13-5 run to collect their fourth straight SEC victory.

“They did an excellent job on Josh and he didn’t get many clean looks,” Jans added. “Certainly, foul trouble didn’t help him. But our bench was tremendous and that’s why we won the game. We had so many productive guys come off the bench and do a lot of things that don’t show up on the stat sheet. I thought that was the big difference in the game.”

For the game, State shot an even 50% and made 6 of 14 behind the 3 point arc. The Bulldogs were just 23 of 39 at the foul line and had 10 turnovers, including just two in the second half. Both teams had 34 rebounds and 15 offensive rebounds.

Mississippi State held Ole Miss to 40% shooting, including 29.6% in the second half. Ole Miss was 6 of 19 from 3 point territory and made 19 of 21 at the foul line. The Rebels also had 17 turnovers and were outscored 21-14 in points off turnovers.

Matthew Murrell led the Rebels with 23 points while Allen Flanigan and Jaylen Murray finished with 12 points apiece. In the first meeting between State and Ole Miss in January, Murray had a game-high 21 points.

“Tonight was an interesting game,” said Beard. “I thought they were the more physical team and it is why they won the game. Obviously, 40 something points off the bench and their best players produced. They deserved the win.

“It is amazing to me that Smith and Bell, their big men, had zero fouls in the game. Two physical players in an SEC game in late February, played 40 minutes at the five spot and had zero fouls. On the other end we had multiple players foul out. In all my multiple years of coaching, I’ve never been involved in something like that.”

For State, it was the program’s fourth win in the last five meetings with Ole Miss. More importantly, it was another needed win for the Bulldogs’ postseason resume.

“It was important,” said Moore, who was 5 of 7 from the field and has made his last six 3 point attempts. “This is our last set of regular-season games and we had to get our get back. And it moves us up in the standings, for sure.”

Mississippi State started out hot and took a 13-4 lead in the opening minutes with all 13 points coming from Bell and Smith. State stretched the lead out to 25-15 before Ole Miss started finding its offensive rhythm.

The Rebels used a 15-2 run and grabbed a 37-33 lead after a Jaylen Murray 3 pointer late in the half. The Rebels maintained that advantage the rest of the half and led 44-40 at the break.

State and Ole Miss both shot 50% from the floor in the opening half. State was 3 of 6 from 3 point range while Ole Miss was 5 of 10 behind the 3 point arc. State was 9 of 12 at the foul line, had eight turnovers and outrebounded Ole Miss 16-14 in the first half. Ole Miss was 9 of 9 at the foul line and had seven turnovers in the first half.

Mississippi State returns to action Saturday as the Bulldogs travel to LSU for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff. And the Bulldogs enter that crucial road game with their longest SEC winning streak of the season.

“And right around the right time, too,” added Moore. “We got a pretty good path ahead of us.”