Mississippi State has stars. In reality, it has more than it knows what to do with. What it doesn’t have is consistency.
It’s why nights like Thursday, one in which the Bulldogs (8-6, 3-5 SEC) narrowly fell to No. 18 Arkansas (15-7, 5-6) 86-80 after overcoming a 15-point second half deficit, that the roster filled with former four- and five-star recruits is so maddeningly difficult to comprehend.
“We could’ve folded in the second half,” first year head coach Nikki McCray-Penson said. “I talked to our team about this is the type of effort that we needed.”
Let’s call Thursday for what it was. It was fast. It was ugly. It was erratic. Really, it was a microcosm of MSU’s ebbing and flowing 2020-21 season.
Floundering through a first half that saw the Bulldogs finish with 13 turnovers — just two below their per game average this season — MSU looked the part of a team that was out of place, out of sorts and slowly running out of opportunities.
Riding a four-game losing streak for the first time since the 2012-13 season, the Bulldogs lacked the clean and crisp discipline onlookers have grown accustomed to over the better part of the past decade. Instead, it was replaced with a laissez-faire disconnectedness that Arkansas rode to a 14-0 run seconds into the contest and helped the Razorbacks average more than 1.4 points per possession well into the second quarter.
Falling behind by 15 points in the third quarter, the MSU of old — the one that won 27 games a year ago and has contended for titles in recent years — reared its head. The Bulldogs closed the frame on a 16-3 run to pull within four points. MSU clamped down defensively, closing out on shooters and rebounded the basketball. A scorching 12 of 27 mark from behind the 3-point line also aided the effort.
“If you’d have told me they were going to shoot 27 threes and we were going to shoot 11, I probably wouldn’t have agreed with you,” Arkansas head coach Mike Neighbors said in reference to the Razorbacks’ SEC leading 9.8 made 3-pointers per game coming into Thursday. “But that’s the way it played out.”
Fighting the ghosts of the not-too-distant past while channeling the play of a team still searching for its identity in the present, the Bulldogs, for all their issues this year, made Thursday a game.
Junior guard Myah Taylor gutted out a black and blue right foot that forced her to miss part of Wednesday’s practice and was wrapped in a boot pregame to notch a career-high 22 points. Rickea Jackson, too, returned to a closer form of what we’ve come to know from the sophomore star, notching 14 points on the night. Aliyah Matharu (17 points) and Jessika Carter (11 points) also found themselves in double digits.
But on an evening in which the Bulldogs overcame plenty, it was, again, the youth and inexperience of a roster still finding its footing that doomed MSU. Time after time the Bulldogs inched within a possession before the Razorbacks experienced duo of Chelsea Dungee and Destiny Slocum slammed the door shut. Finally, it was a missed 24-foot 3-point attempt with just over 20 seconds remaining and MSU trailing by three from Matharu that sent the Bulldogs home with their fourth loss in as many games.
For a team that began the season ranked in the top 10 of most every poll in America, the past month has been a harrowing reminder of how MSU’s outlook has changed.
Week after week, reporters have been assured that MSU’s best basketball is ahead. In February, McCray-Penson has said time and time again, the Bulldogs would figure things out. Even Texas A&M coach Gary Blair and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley told reporters as much following MSU’s blowout losses to both squads in recent weeks.
But after seeing six games rescheduled or canceled entirely due to COVID-19 concerns and MSU now just a misstep or two from missing the NCAA tournament, Thursday was another near miss in a season that’s teetering on the brink. In a matter of 14 games, MSU has gone from a legit Elite Eight contender to a middling team in the midst of a tailspin. But for the first time since the losing streak began Jan. 14, the Bulldogs showed signs of progress.
“This was growth tonight,” McCray-Penson said. “I think our kids are confident that we’re going to continue to have this effort moving forward.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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