Coach Ben Howland said Mississippi State had “a lot of positives” in Saturday’s clash with Colorado State in the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Bulldogs held the nation’s top shooting team under its season average from the field and from 3. They pulled down 13 offensive boards and outrebounded the Rams by one in total. They turned the ball over just nine times to Colorado State’s 15 giveaways.
But one fundamental shortcoming cost the Bulldogs (6-3) in a 66-63 loss to the Rams (10-0) on Saturday afternoon.
“We just struggled to make some baskets,” Howland said.
Mississippi State missed its last four shots and made just one of its final 10 attempts, blowing a late eight-point lead en route to its second straight loss.
The Bulldogs led 57-49 with under six minutes to go before the Rams scored 17 of the next 19 points, turning Saturday’s game on its head and missing out on a chance to deal Colorado State its first loss.
Mississippi State, meanwhile, is dealing with a second straight loss in which it had a chance to tie things up with a final shot. The Bulldogs’ Iverson Molinar missed a tying 3-pointer Sunday against Minnesota in an eventual 81-76 loss; on Saturday, Molinar missed two 3s in the final 15 seconds, and Shakeel Moore missed a triple, too.
Moore’s miss came with 5 seconds to go off an offensive rebound after Molinar’s shot off an out-of-bounds play misfired. Colorado State’s David Roddy missed the front end of a one-and-one, but Molinar fired a contested triple at the horn and missed it.
“It’s a very hard pill to swallow,” Mississippi State center Javian Davis said.
Davis was one of the bright spots Howland mentioned, scoring 13 points in 22 minutes off the bench. The one-time Alabama transfer, who shot just 39.5 percent from the foul line last season, made 7 of 8 free throws and is up to 57.6 percent on the year.
Davis noted he has made 16 of 20 free throws since a 3-for-13 start to the year. He said foul shooting was one of his two main areas of improvement coming into the season along with conditioning.
“I play hard, I play physical, so I normally get fouled a lot, so I’ve got to just get to the line and knock free throws down, and that’s what I’ve been doing the past three or four games,” he said.
The Bulldogs will depend on Davis more in the next few weeks with the absence of big man Tolu Smith, who did not play Saturday with a fractured pinky toe in his right foot. Smith missed the season’s first four games recovering from surgery on his left foot, broke his toe against Richmond in his second game of the season and played through the injury — until Saturday.
Howland said Smith will likely return Dec. 29 against Arkansas to start Southeastern Conference play — or later.
“I expect him to be out for at least the next two weeks, and then we’ll kind of reevaluate it,” Howland said. “He was trying to go on it valiantly and just couldn’t move well enough to be effective at either end of the floor.”
The Bulldogs managed to outrebound the Rams 34-33 without Smith, but they missed his offensive prowess, particularly in the paint. Mississippi State shot just 21 of 62 (33.9 percent) from the field and 7 of 28 from 3.
Garrison Brooks, MSU’s leading scorer, went only 6 of 14 from the field in a 15-point performance. Moore had 13 points on 5-of-14 shooting, and Molinar had 11 points but shot just 2 of 16.
“We just struggled to score, struggled to get it inside,” Howland said. “We’ve got to be better at that, especially down the stretch of games.”
Mississippi State got out to an 11-point first-half lead before Colorado State caught fire, making three triples to head into halftime down just two points. The Bulldogs pushed the lead back to nine early in the second half, but the Rams hung around.
CSU scored nine straight points after Davis’ free throws pushed the MSU lead to eight, taking the lead briefly before Moore put the Bulldogs back on top. But a layup by Roddy put the Rams back ahead, and they stayed there.
Kendle Moore hit a big 3 to put Colorado State up seven with 2:23 to go, and Mississippi State got the lead back to three but never could equalize.
“There were some very good positives out of some of our guys, but obviously we’re very frustrated to not be able to close it out the last six or seven minutes of the game,” Howland said.
The Bulldogs will host Georgia State (5-3) at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Dawg notes
Forward Cameron Matthews played through pain in his hip, scoring two points and grabbing three rebounds in 17 minutes. Matthews was attended to by trainers roughly midway through the first half, but he played down the stretch for the Bulldogs. The sophomore from Olive Branch was limping and clearly playing at less than 100 percent. “He just said it started to hurt,” Howland said. “I don’t think it was any specific play, so I’m really, really not sure on it.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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