STARKVILLE — Mississippi State women’s basketball picked up its second win of the season against Alcorn State on Sunday. JerKaila Jordan scored 20 points to help lead the Bulldogs to a 73-45 win over the Braves, improving to 2-0 on the season.
Jordan’s offensive production came after a difficult night on Thursday. She had just two points from 1-11 shooting in the 100-56 win over Memphis but looked much more her normal self thanks in part to her teammates’ confidence.
“It felt great to feel regular, but I just want to give a shoutout to my teammates for making me feel uplifted and confident,” Jordan said. “Even through practice, I knew my shots weren’t falling, but my team was winning and my teammates were playing great so there was nothing to complain about.”
While Jordan thrived, the game was reminiscent of the sluggish 77-42 contest between the teams in last year’s season opener. Head coach Sam Purcell continued to rotate the lineups, and while the performance was enough to get the win it was a test of their resolve against an experienced team that was willing to slow the game down.
“I thought they did a great job using all their timeouts to take the air out of the building,” MSU head coach Sam Purcell said of Alcorn. “Our fans were dying to get out of their seats and get one of those 6-0, 8-0 runs, but credit to them.”
The Bulldogs were slow out of the gate, falling behind early to some hot shooting beyond the arc from Alcorn’s Nakia Cheathman, who hit three from distance in the opening five minutes. The Braves led 9-8 at the midway point of the first quarter, but the Bulldogs went on an 18-10 run after that to end the quarter.
Defensively the Bulldogs turned it on in the second quarter, allowing just five points from the visitors, and took a 44-23 lead into the halftime interval. That trend continued into the second half, and while the Bulldogs won comfortably, there was not the same flow and scoring that was evident in the win over Memphis in the season opener on Thursday. The positives on offense came from the guard play, with Jordan’s 20 points and Destiny McPhaul’s 15 leading the way for a group with several newcomers.
“It starts in practice, with (my teammates) helping me get comfortable in the system,” McPhaul said of playing with her new squad. “It hasn’t been hard, for real, just getting my feet wet.”
The slow start on offense was a topic the Bulldogs highlighted post-game, and Purcell was particularly keen to use the game film for the week of practice ahead. He wasn’t worried about it, if anything he was enthusiastic about solving the early problems.
“We love home runs, so in a game like Memphis where it’s press, quick tempo and we can get out and go,” Purcell said. “They did a great job loading the box and in our offense, we’ve got to have some patience. We’ll get those home runs if we can get some ball reversals, some movement and throw cuts but most importantly our bigs dominating on all sides. I thought a lot of that didn’t occur today, but credit to them for having a game plan to make it ugly.”
MSU is back in action against Alabama State at home, starting at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.
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