STARKVILLE — Mississippi State had seen three top-10 teams march into Humphrey Coliseum this season and dictate the pace of the game. The Bulldogs were not about to let it happen a fourth time.
Locked in a tight battle with No. 7 Texas A&M throughout the first half Tuesday night, No. 21 MSU took control in typical Chris Jans fashion. The Aggies had twice as many turnovers as made field goals in the second half, and the Bulldogs finally picked up a signature win with a 70-54 victory.
“That’s just Bulldog basketball,” said Cameron Matthews, who leads the Southeastern Conference in steals and tied a season high with six Tuesday. “That’s how we had been playing in the past, these past two years (since) Jans first got here. That’s what we’d been missing, what we’d been lacking these last few games. This game, we got back to what we’re used to doing.”
MSU (19-7, 7-6 SEC) trailed by one after a physical first half against a Texas A&M team that entered the night second to last in the conference in scoring offense but second in scoring defense. Josh Hubbard and RJ Melendez were both fouled on 3-point attempts during an 8-0 Bulldogs run that put the hosts in front by seven early, but the Aggies (20-6, 9-4) fought back with a 10-0 run to surge into the lead.
The Bulldogs were just 2-for-11 from behind the arc in the first half, but against the worst 3-point offense in the SEC, MSU held the Aggies in check outside of C.J. Wilcher, who made his first three attempts from behind the arc.
“A&M is really good at dragging you into the ring. They’re a physical basketball team,” Jans said. “We obviously knew exactly how they were going to play. You don’t have a choice at times. We talked a lot about that. We were going to have to get in the trenches.”
A week after surrendering the first 17 points of the second half following a tight first half against a top-5 Florida team, MSU quickly took control out of the break this time. Hubbard’s first 3-pointer of the night less than a minute into the half gave the Bulldogs the lead for good.
The star sophomore guard scored his team’s first eight points of the second half, and 18 of his game-high 25 came after halftime. His four steals were a career high and another indicator of his continued improvement on defense.
“We won the turnover battle,” Jans said. “That was the story of the game, how many times we turned them over and turned defense into offense. When you start making threes, that was the separation in the game.”
MSU turned 19 Texas A&M turnovers into 22 points. Of the Aggies’ 14 turnovers in the second half, 12 were of the live-ball variety. And after struggling from outside early, the Bulldogs were 7-for-14 from 3-point range in the second half. They were also 17-for-20 at the foul line for the game, with Hubbard making 10 of his 11 free throws.
Claudell Harris Jr. came off the bench for the second straight game, with Riley Kugel taking his place in the starting lineup, and he came up huge down the stretch. He scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half, drilling a trio of 3-pointers in a span of two minutes and 13 seconds to help MSU pull away.
“I’m a team guy,” Harris said. “I’m just trying to win. It’s Bulldog basketball. However we try to win, I’m willing to do it. Perspective is everything, and you just have to make the most of every opportunity you get in order to help your teammates win.”
A KeShawn Murphy baseline jumper gave the Bulldogs their first double-digit lead of the night and prompted a Texas A&M timeout, but the Aggies quickly trimmed the margin back to four. From there, though, MSU clogged every passing lane and made it difficult for the visitors to manufacture any offense.
The Bulldogs head back on the road Saturday to face Oklahoma for their first meeting with the Sooners in five years and their first trip to Norman since 1996.
“We’ve had some wins since we’ve arrived (in 2022) against top-10 teams, but for this particular team, it was needed,” Jans said. “You need validation. We can talk until we’re blue in the face, but after you do that, I would expect to have a different bounce in their step come Thursday when we start practice.”
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