STARKVILLE — The Mississippi State men’s basketball team gave itself a chance to win in the second half.
After struggling to make shots in the first 20 minutes, the Bulldogs regrouped and erased a 12-point halftime deficit to tie the game midway through the second half.
But Alabama pushed back each time and held on for a 68-58 victory Tuesday night at Humphrey Coliseum in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams.
“Hurrying and being quick really killed us in being down 12,” said MSU coach Ben Howland, whose team had a three-game winning streak stopped. “You expend a lot of energy when you’re down 12 and have to fight back like that against a good team.”
The Bulldogs (9-4, 0-1 SEC) tied the game twice in the second half. Xavian Stapleton dunked on a bounce pass from I.J. Ready to tie the game at 42 with 11 minutes, 20 seconds left. Shannon Hale missed a 3-pointer on Alabama’s next possession. Aric Holman then missed a dunk when he didn’t elevate high enough to get the ball over the rim on MSU’s ensuing possession. The Crimson Tide (8-5, 1-0) answered with a layup by Hale to re-take the lead. Tyson Carter’s layup re-tied the game at 44, but Alabama used a 7-0 run to take a 51-44 lead and forced Howland to take a timeout with 8:19 remaining.
Trailing 64-50 with two minutes to go, the Bulldogs used an 8-0 run to cut the deficit to 64-58, but the Crimson Tide hit four free throws in the final 48 seconds to seal the deal.
“We would come down and make a bad decision and then they would get another run and we couldn’t ever get back,” MSU freshman Mario Kegler said. “It takes a lot of energy to come back and fight like that.”
Kegler led MSU with 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting, but he was 0 of 5 from 3-point range. Carter added 10 points off the bench.
The Bulldogs led 11-8 in the first half, but the Crimson Tide used a 22-6 run to take a 30-17 lead with 3:07 left. Alabama shot 35.5 percent (11 of 31) from the field in the first half and led 32-20 at halftime.
MSU shot 25 percent (7 of 28) from the field and 7.1 percent (1 of 14) from 3-point range in the first half. MSU shot 19 percent (4 of 21) from 3-point range for the game.
“We were very impatient offensively,” Howland said. “We don’t understand how we have to play offensively as a team.”
Howland felt the Bulldogs were “way anxious” early in the game, which prevented them getting off to the start they wanted.
The Bulldogs scored the first eight points of the second half, including back-to-back 3-pointers by Quinndary Weatherspoon and Carter. Kegler added a layup to cut the deficit to 32-28.
After scoring a career-high 27 points against Morehead State on Dec. 22 and 25 points against Missouri-Kansas City on Dec. 29, Weatherspoon scored a season-low seven points on 2-of-11 shooting. He was 1 of 6 from 3-point range and 2 of 2 from the free-throw line.
Alabama coach Avery Johnson wanted to contain Weatherspoon, so he had 6-foot-7 Riley Norris guard the 6-4 Weatherspoon.
“He’s an All-SEC player, so the smart thing to do is to try to give him a lot of attention,” Johnson said. “We just tried to give him different looks. There really is no rocket science with this. If he catches the ball, we’re in trouble. If we can try to limit his catches, we’ll have a chance if we can rebound the basketball. We just tried to keep him off balance and fortunately he missed some shots.”
Norris, who scored 11 points, played 32 minutes (Weatherspoon played 33). He was called for four fouls.
“We tried to take him out of the game. He’s a great player,” Norris said. “He scores in so many different ways, so we thought if we slowed him down we had a chance on the defensive end to slow their team down. I thought our defense overall was pretty good.”
Avery Johnson Jr., and Dazon Ingram had 13 points for the Crimson Tide.
MSU will play at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at LSU. The SEC Network will broadcast the game live.
“That was a tough loss and a tough way to start off the conference season,” Howland said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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