STARKVILLE — While his team’s offensive problems have been front and center in a stretch of four losses in five games, Mississippi State men’s basketball coach Rick Ray still believes his team has arrived defensively.
“If you take our turnovers away offensively, we are right there,” Ray said. “We have shown the ability to be an elite defensive team. You look at some games, we are outrebounding teams, holding them to low shooting percentages and we are still losing those games. That happens because of the situations we put ourselves in offensively. If you take that away, we are an elite defensive team.”
MSU (12-15, 5-9 SEC) is third in the Southeastern Conference in points allowed (62.7 per game), and has held five of its past seven opponents under their season average. That includes a 65-61 loss to Arkansas on Saturday in which MSU held the Arkansas 14 points under its season average of 79 points per game, which leads the SEC.
Ray isn’t the only coach who has noticed MSU’s defensive strength. John Calipari, whose No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats will play MSU at 6 tonight (SEC Network) at Humphrey Coliseum, also has been impressed with MSU’s defensive prowess.
“They’re fighting you on every possession,” Calipari said. “On the zone out of bounds, they’re giving you nothing. They’re making you throw it in the backcourt. And again, they’re getting up in people.”
Kentucky (27-0, 14-0) also plays tough defense. With four players — Willie Cauley-Stein, Dakari Johnson, Karl Anthony Towns, and Trey Lyles — in its 10-man rotation at 6-foot-10 or better, Kentucky is at the top of every major defensive category in the conference. The Wildcats also lead the nation in defensive efficiency, are second nationally in points allowed (52.6), lead the league in blocks (6.96 per game), and are second in the league in rebounds (38.7).
“They are always really big,” said MSU forward Roquez Johnson, the team’s leading scorer (9.9 ppg.). “You can’t really prepare for their height because we don’t have those kinds of players on our team. You really can’t simulate it until you get out there.”
Johnson has been part of MSU’s improved defense, as he and junior forward Gavin Ware have helped MSU outrebound 10 of its 14 conference opponents. Despite MSU’s defensive success, the Bulldogs are allowing 68 ppg. in their past 10, the results haven’t followed. The Bulldogs have lost three-straight home games due to an offense that can’t put two halves together. The Bulldogs scored 51 points in a loss to Alabama on Feb. 10 and 61 against Arkansas, a game that saw MSU go scoreless for six minutes down the stretch in the second half.
“It seems like we have one of those every game,” MSU guard Craig Sword said. “It’s frustrating. We have to carry out the game plan better.”
MSU also committed 12 of its 23 turnovers in the second half against Arkansas. The Bulldogs are last in the SEC — 325th in the country — with 409 turnovers, an average of 15 per game.
“We really don’t know how good we can be defensively because of our inability to protect the basketball,” Ray said. “We still do some very good things as a basketball team. We play good defense, we rebound the ball, but it all comes back to offense and the fact we can’t protect the ball. If we can figure that out, we can really start to improve.”
For Ray to get his first victory against a ranked team — MSU hasn’t beaten a team in the top 25 since it beat Vanderbilt in 2012 — the defense will have to contain a team that is second in the conference in scoring (74.7 ppg.) and has a balanced attack that has seven players scoring at least 7.5 ppg. Guards Devin Booker, a freshman, and Andrew Harrison, a sophomore, average 11 ppg.
“They are unique in that they have so many options,” Ray said. “They have recruited so well that John has the luxury, if a kid isn’t playing well or isn’t doing what John wants, he sends him to the bench in favor of another McDonald’s All-American.”
Calipari isn’t assuming victory tonight as the Wildcats attempt to become the first Division I team since Indiana in 1976 to finish a season unbeaten. To do that, Kentucky will have to beat a team Calipari believes will bring the fight to it.
“When he took over, that thing was not in great shape,” Calipari said of Ray, who took over after Rick Stansbury retired. “It’s taken time, but he’s building a culture and it’s being built on work and defense and rebounding and toughness. That’s how you begin the process of taking that program where he wants it to go.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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