Iverson Molinar has shot less than 50 percent from the field in a game just once in almost six weeks.

On Jan. 15 against Alabama, Molinar finished 8 of 17 from the field, but he still scored 24 points and led Mississippi State to a win over the 24th-ranked Crimson Tide.

It turned out to be one of four performances of 20 or more points for Molinar in the past five games, including a career-high 30 points Tuesday night in an overtime loss at Kentucky.

That it stands as Molinar’s poorest shooting night since Dec. 17 against Furman is a sign of just how good the Mississippi State junior point guard has become.

By most offensive statistics, Molinar is one of the best guards — if not the best — in the potent Southeastern Conference. 

He is the SEC’s second leading scorer at 18.4 points per game. He is second in free throw percentage at 87.6 percent. He is fifth in the conference in field goal percentage and even seventh in assists.

Molinar has scored in double digits in every game this season, picking up the slack when his teammates have needed it. Of course, he could only do so much at Rupp Arena in Lexington — Molinar shot 13 of 21 from the field, while Mississippi State’s other four starters were just 9 of 30 from the floor.

The junior also seems to have eliminated the bad games that plagued him earlier in the season. He had the occasional off night in a few Bulldogs losses: 5 of 16 against Louisville, 9 of 20 against Minnesota and just 2 of 16 against Colorado State.

Molinar has continued to struggle from deep, too, ranking 42nd out of 42 qualified SEC 3-point shooters with his 29.2 percent clip.

But the way he’s playing overall, Mississippi State should hardly care.

Gap between offense, defense growing

As Molinar and the Bulldogs’ offense have continued to improve, though, the gap between Mississippi State’s offense and defense has naturally grown larger.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing when the MSU offense ranks No. 23 in the country, according to KenPom.com. In the SEC, only Kentucky (No. 4) and Auburn (No. 14) outpace the Bulldogs.

But Mississippi State’s defense checks in at No. 83, resulting in one of the bigger gaps among top-50 teams’ offense and defense. 

Only eight of the 38 teams ranked ahead of Mississippi State overall have a larger split, including Purdue (No. 1 offense, No. 65 defense); LSU (No. 130 offense, No. 1 defense); and Iowa (No. 7 offense, No. 96 defense).

The Bulldogs have allowed 70 or more points in four of their past five games, including 82 to Kentucky (72 in regulation) and 80 in their Jan. 19 loss at Florida. The Wildcats’ output is the highest scoring total of the year against Mississippi State so far.

Opposing teams are still scoring a disproportionate amount of points on 3s against the Bulldogs, with Kentucky (two clutch 3s in overtime by Kellan Grady) no exception. MSU allows 38.2 percent of its opponents’ points to come off 3s, the 19th-highest mark among 358 Division I teams.

Of course, part of the Bulldogs’ defensive struggles can simply be attributed to playing good offensive teams so far. Besides Kentucky’s fourth-ranked offense, six other MSU opponents rank in the top 80 in offense: Colorado State (18th), Furman (38th), Arkansas (44th), Florida (55th), Richmond (70th) and Minnesota (77th).

Lucky for the Bulldogs, there are no more top-40 offensive teams on the schedule until Auburn visits Starkville on March 2.

Bulldogs’ tempo continues to slow

UCLA finished No. 35 in KenPom’s adjusted tempo metric in 2012-13, Ben Howland’s last year in Westwood.

Since then, a Howland team playing at a fast pace has been harder and harder to find.

Over the course of his tenure in Starkville, the seventh-year Mississippi State coach has gradually ground his team’s offensive tempo to a halt.

Mississippi State ranked No. 108 out of 351 D-I teams in adjusted tempo in 2015-16, Howland’s first season; that number sank below No. 275 two years ago and hasn’t surpassed even that mark.

This season, the Bulldogs’ tempo checks in at 288th in the nation. It is the slowest pace in the SEC.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Mississippi State is doing something wrong. A basic graph of KenPom adjusted offensive efficiency against adjusted tempo showed little correlation; in other words, teams that play faster don’t necessarily play better. And MSU’s offense is among the best in the country.

But anyone who hopes to see the Bulldogs play at a faster pace isn’t likely to get what they wish for any time soon.

Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.