STARKVILLE — Mississippi State men’s basketball coach Rick Ray has seen how his team handles success.
Tonight he will find out just how good his Bulldogs can be on the road.
For the first time this season, MSU (4-0) will venture outside of Starkville at 8:30 p.m. tonight when it plays a seasoned Saint Louis (3-1) team in the first round of the Corpus Christi Coastal Challenge in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Ray, who has his team off to a 4-0 start for the first time in three seasons, hopes for a better showing from his team than the one it delivered Monday in a lackluster 59-46 win against Division II Clayton State.
“We are going into a situation where we will be playing quality opponents in a short amount of time,” Ray said. “We can’t afford to have droughts like we had tonight.”
The winner of MSU/Saint Louis will face the winner of TCU/Bradley at 6 p.m. Saturday. The losers will meet at 3:30 p.m.
“The past couple of years at least, (St. Louis, which was 27-7 last season,) has always been in the top five nationally in scoring defense,” Ray said. “What they do is a they do a great job taking away your strengths and making you play to your weakness. I’m sure they will try to take away our ability to get the ball in the paint.”
That has been MSU’s strong point this season, as forward Roquez Johnson and junior center Gavin Ware have dominated down low. Johnson, who has led MSU in scoring in each game, averages a little more than 17 points per game, while Ware is averaging 13 points and just under nine rebounds.
“We will have to be disciplined in getting the ball in the paint,” Ray said. “We weren’t as patient with it (against Clayton State), and St. Louis will try to force us to do anything but that. As a basketball team, we have to be smart enough to figure out a way to get our guys touches in the paint.”
St. Louis (3-1) is coming off a 57-54 victory against North Carolina A&T on Tuesday.
MSU’s trip will be its first foray away from Humphrey Coliseum, where the Bulldogs have won their four games by an average of 13 points per game. That homestand ended with two wins in three days, a 71-63 victory against Utah State and the win against Clayton State. Ray didn’t approve of the Clayton State game.
“Tonight was our first chance to show we could handle success,” Ray said. “We didn’t handle that very well. A lot of guys on the team could be in for a rude awakening. We have IJ back already, we have Craig Sword who will be back eventually. There are guys on this team playing right now that won’t be getting the minutes soon, and we have to see how we adjust to that.”
MSU’s rotation has featured 10 players, which includes Ready, MSU’s presumed point guard who is returning from injury, and four freshmen off the bench.
Forward Demetrius Houston has been MSU’s highest-scoring freshman with an average of eight points per game.
Junior guard Austin McBroom leads the Billikens with an average of 13 ppg., while junior guard Ash Yacoubou averages six rebounds per game.
Tonight’s meeting will be the second between the programs. St. Louis earned a 63-46 win in 1950
Sword progressing slowly
MSU has gotten off to its fast start despite being without Sword, a junior guard, the team’s leading scorer from a year ago. After having surgery for a herniated disc in his back a little more than a month before the regular season started, Sword’s original timetable for a return was four to six weeks, which would have had him back in action for MSU’s second game. But Ray said Sword hasn’t progressed after tweaking the injury in practice two weeks ago.
“He still isn’t going through five-on-five drills,” Ray said. “He’s going through some non-contact stuff, but nothing five-on-five, and until he does that, it’s hard to say when he will be back.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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