STARKVILLE — When Rick Ray became Mississippi State men’s basketball coach last year, he wanted fans to leave Humphrey Coliseum knowing the Bulldogs played harder, tougher, and smarter than their opponent.
In a 71-61 loss to TCU on Thursday night in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, MSU failed in all three areas. An undermanned and undersized TCU dominated the first 25 minutes, building an 18-point deficit MSU (5-2) couldn’t erase in front of an announced paid attendance of 6,795.
“What we have here is everybody is wrapped up in our offense, coaching staff, players, fans,” Ray said. “Our problem is we refused to be sound on the defensive end. When you are solid and compact on every possession, you put yourself in the right defensive position and you don’t foul.”
Without Amric Fields, its most productive player and its low-post scoring threat, TCU (5-3) led nearly from start to finish thanks in part to a career-high 20 points from sophomore guard Charles Hill Jr. and 31 points from its bench. Hill Jr.’s previous career-high was 13 points last season against Oklahoma
“It wasn’t so much I was feeling it tonight, but I just made a couple open shots right away, and then my teammates found me for some much buckets,” Hill Jr. said. “We wanted to establish a tempo and flow early after getting beat early in our last blowout loss to Harvard.”
MSU again played with little energy and defensive intensity in a first half that saw TCU get eight layups and a dozen field goals in the paint. MSU slipped to 1-21 under Ray when they trail at halftime, a trend the MSU coach would like to correct.
“It’s a constant story that we don’t go out and play hard in the beginning, and if I knew the answer, the problem would be fixed, but that’s something our players have to recognize and take a personal pride in, and that’s just not happening,” Ray said.
TCU coach Trent Johnson may have given the country the blueprint on how to defeat MSU by playing 40 minutes of disciplined, 2-3 zone defense.
Still, Craig Sword scored a game-high 24 points, but the sophomore from Montgomery, Ala., had little help from his teammates on either end.
“We played hard, but we should have played that way from the beginning of the game,” Sword said. “We didn’t have enough energy. We just have to play hard from the jump. We didn’t approach the game the right way.”
Missing three contributors to the lineup, Johnson said he’s playing zone out of necessity, but the maneuver forced MSU to shoot 3 of 18 from 3-point range and prevented it from getting into a rhythm on offense.
“I’m not comfortable with (playing a zone defense),” Johnson said. “If I had my choice, I like to play man, but I also like to win, too. This gives us the best chance to go do that on the road in a hostile environment.”
With TCU missing Fields and not having a big post presence, MSU starting forwards Gavin Ware and Colin Borchert combined for more personal fouls (eight) than field goals (five).
“Colin and Gavin should play good basketball no matter who the opponent is,” Ray said. “Gavin is clearly being doubled and tripled when he touches the basketball inside near the block, and then Colin Borchert is somebody that is flat out just not being productive lately.”
MSU cut the lead to three points late in the game, but TCU made free throws and created turnovers. The Horned Frogs were 25 of 31 from the free-throw line and forced 15 turnovers without putting a lot of pressure on the basketball.
In his first game back from severely straining his hamstring last month, MSU freshman point guard IJ Ready played 23 minutes and had nine points and zero assists. Other than Sword, MSU starters combined to go 6 of 21 from the field with six turnovers.
MSU sophomore guard Fred Thomas allowed his offensive ineffectiveness to affect his defense, as Ray was unable to have him on the floor late because of his mental breakdowns. Thomas had one point and went without a field goal for the fifth time in his career.
“We need to get (Craig Sword) more help on the offensive end,” Ready said. “If we are going to shoot 18 3-pointers in the game, we have to make more of them. We have to get to the gym and make shots.”
Ray reminded fans not to be impressed with his team’s comeback because it was the product of desperation and not a true reflection of how it played for 40 minutes.
“It’s nice that we came back, but we did that out of urgency,” Ray said. “We played the way we needed to at the end of the game because we were desperate. We need to play that way throughout the game.”
MSU will play Southeastern Louisiana at 7 p.m. Dec. 13 at BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo.
Follow Matt Stevens on Twitter @matthewcstevens.
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