STARKVILLE — Mississippi State men’s basketball coach Ben Howland can joke about the beginning of the season when he compares it to where his team is today.
“When I think about our first game (against Norfolk State on Nov. 11), we crushed them by four,” Howland said sarcastically, a line that was met with laughter Tuesday during his media availability. “Think about some of our games: Northwestern State, a resounding one-point win.”
His punch lines exhausted, Howland discussed how MSU finished with a .500 record and had a positive scoring margin against the 71st most difficult schedule out of 351 in Division I — according to kenpom.com, a college basketball advanced statistics website.
MSU’s second-year head coach also talked how MSU lost six of seven games to teams projected by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi to make the NCAA tournament by six or fewer points, and how guard Lamar Peters earned All-Southeastern Conference Freshman Team honors and Quinndary Weatherspoon was named second-team All-SEC.
For Howland, the takeaway is obvious.
“This team got better,” Howland said. “Of course it did, we’re the youngest team in the country. Defensively, particularly, we’ve gotten a lot better, which is a good foundation to build on for the future.”
Twelfth-seeded MSU (15-15, 6-12 SEC) will try to translate everything it learned in the regular season into success in the postseason at 6 tonight (SEC Network) when it plays 13th-seeded LSU (10-20) in the opening round of the SEC tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.
MSU defeated LSU 88-76 on March 4 in its regular-season finale in Starkville. The victory helped the Bulldogs sweep the season series after a 95-78 win on Jan. 7 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“We know it’s going to be hard to beat a team three times in the same year, but we’re approaching things the same way we’ve been doing,” Weatherspoon said. “We’re not changing anything.”
The winner of that game will advance to face fifth-seeded Alabama (17-13) at approximately 2:30 p.m. Thursday (SEC Network). Alabama beat MSU 68-58 on Jan. 3 in Starkville and 71-62 on Jan. 28 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Alabama was responsible for two of MSU’s three lowest scoring outputs in SEC play through the first half of the schedule.
“Whatever success we had in the regular season doesn’t count now,” Alabama coach Avery Johnson said Monday on the SEC coaches’ teleconference. “When you talk about Mississippi State, they got Weatherspoon, (Aric) Holman inside and Schnider Herard inside. They shoot a lot of threes — six or seven guys on their team can make 3-point shots.”
MSU shot 54.5 percent from the field Saturday to snap a seven-game losing streak. It was the first time the Bulldogs shot better than 50 percent since the second game of the losing streak, and just the fifth time in SEC play.
Despite the fact MSU attempted 66 field goals, a number it hadn’t hit since the beginning of the losing streak and three shy of a new season high, MSU assistant coach Ernie Zeigler said he felt the team’s shot selection was improved.
“We had our struggles with that at times where some of the shots we’d take, you might as well deem them turnovers,” he said in the teleconference. “There’s definitely been some growth. With a young team, guys are understanding we have a lot of young talent that is capable of scoring.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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