As the shrieks and cheers of schoolchildren enveloped the airspace at the Cajundome on Monday, Mississippi State (9-2) slogged to a 64-48 early-morning win over Louisiana (6-3) in Lafayette.
Tipping off at 11 a.m. as part of Education Day, the Bulldogs sleepwalked through much of Monday’s contest as they recorded a season-high 25 turnovers, 12 of which came in the game’s opening 20 minutes.
“I thought we came in at 9 a.m. and shot, and I was feeling really good,” coach Vic Schaefer said. “We’re a much better shooting team than we are shooting it right now for whatever reason.”
As the Bulldogs looked discombobulated on the offensive end, it was a rough afternoon for sophomore stalwart Jessika Carter. Carter, who entered the contest averaging 14.7 points and 11 rebounds, recorded just a single shot in the first quarter and failed to record a rebound until the 8:22 mark in the second frame.
“She’s not getting a lot of one-on-one stuff,” Schaefer said. “She’s getting a lot of crowd on her, and we need her to be better. We need to have an inside game. We’ve got some size, and those kids have got to be better down there.”
With Carter struggling to find her footing, senior guard Jordan Danberry and junior forward Chloe Bibby picked up the slack on the boards, finishing the afternoon with 10 and 12, respectively.
“I thought those kids rebounded it extremely well, and we certainly needed that,” Schaefer said.
Offensively, junior guard Andra Espinoza-Hunter was among the few bright spots on a day the Bulldogs shot a meager 30.3 percent from the field in the game’s opening half.
Though she finished 3 of 9 on the afternoon, Espinoza-Hunter had 12 points to tie Danberry for the team lead, and her running 3-pointer from the scorer’s table put the Bulldogs ahead 30-25 heading into the break.
“That just goes to show you (that) you play it out — you go get the best shot you can get,” Schaefer said. “She dribbled it as far up the floor as she could; she didn’t settle for a halfcourt shot — she went and got it over probably two or three steps, and it was probably still a 38-footer. Give that kid credit, and it was a big shot.”
Picking up where she left off just before the buzzer, Espinoza-Hunter added her final five points of the contest in the third quarter as the Bulldogs outscored the Ragin’ Cajuns 16-11 on 7-of-12 shooting in the frame.
Now sitting at 9-2, the Bulldogs will head to Las Vegas later this week for the Duel in the Desert tournament. MSU will open the competition against a South Florida team that has been in and out of the Associated Press Top 25 this season before facing either Virginia or host UNLV.
MSU’s contest against USF is set to tip at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Cox Pavilion.
“A lot of second-year, first-year players,” Schaefer said. “At the end of the day — second- and first-year players — you’re going to have a lot of days like this.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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