STARKVILLE — Over the last six days, Abdul Ado’s loss has been Reggie Perry’s gain.
Ado was a usual starter for the Mississippi State men’s basketball team before his lower leg injury in a loss to Arizona State Nov. 19; Perry stepped in for him two days later in a win over Saint Mary’s and again Monday in No. 25 MSU’s 88-65 win over Alcorn State (1-6).
Perry logged his first double-double as a Bulldog, 16 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. MSU coach Ben Howland has praised his rebounding all season, thus why Perry has been granted the starting role, but fellow freshmen Robert Woodard has also seen a playing time spike in Ado’s absence. The Columbus product played 19 minutes off the bench and dished out five assists while scoring six and grabbing six rebounds.
“I’m still working, I still feel a little bit out of line, but I feel like I had a good week of practice and a good game, it showed on the court tonight,” Perry said. “I still have to grow and keep getting better.”
As for Ado, his status for the Friday game against Dayton remains up in the air. He had a walking boot on his left foot during the game.
“He hasn’t done anything yet. He had a little swelling after he worked on it, but I’m hoping he’ll be able to join us in the next day or two,” MSU coach Ben Howland said.
Ado’s absence combined with the blowout also meant more minutes for E.J. Datcher, who played five minutes and score two points.
Turnover aberration
The competition got tougher and No. 25 MSU managed to take even better care of the ball. That changed Monday.
MSU committed 12 turnovers in its first three games, but cut that down to 10 and eight in two games in Las Vegas against Arizona State and Saint Mary’s. Against Alcorn State, the Bulldogs (5-1) committed 17 turnovers.
“That was probably the biggest thing that stood out that was a negative — that was the only negative, that we had too many turnovers,” Howland said. “Two of them were moving screens, a couple of them were against the zone not reading. It’s something we have to get better at.”
New NET rankings released
The NCAA is debuting a new metric for use by its NCAA tournament selection committee, the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET); MSU still has work to do.
The NCAA released the first set of NET rankings Monday and MSU is ranked 66th. The Southeastern Conference only had two teams in the top 40, No. 16 Auburn and No. 27 Tennessee.
The NET is replacing the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) and is created using five factors: team value index, net efficiency, winning percentage, adjusted winning percentage and scoring margin.
Team value index is the part of the formula that judges the value of game results by opponent, location and the winner. Net efficiency is the result of a given team’s offensive efficiency subtracted by its defensive efficiency; offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency are both calculated by points per possession scored and allowed.
Winning percentage is as it always is and adjusted winning percentage is that adjusted for location of game. A road win adds 1.4 percent to the winning percentage, a neutral court win adds 1 percent and a home win adds 0.6 percent; a road loss subtracts 0.6 percent, a neutral court loss subtracts 1 percent and a home loss subtracts 1.4 percent. Scoring margin is computed as it always is but with the total per game capped at 10, in place to prevent incentivizing teams to run up the score on weaker opponents.
MSU has several opportunities to improve its NET coming soon: it plays at No. 69 Dayton on Friday, meets No. 51 Clemson at a neutral site on Dec. 8 and hosts No. 46 Cincinnati on Dec. 15.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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