STARKVILLE — As pleased as Chris Jans has been with Shakeel Moore’s offensive progress, Mississippi State’s head coach needed more out of his senior guard defensively.
After all, this was a player who was named to the watchlist for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year award last season, and Moore’s ability to limit opposing guards was central to the Bulldogs’ defensive efforts in Jans’ first year in Starkville. So Jans grabbed Moore before MSU’s game last Saturday against Arkansas, reinforcing the need for Moore to guard the ball.
If Moore didn’t get the message against the Razorbacks, he certainly did Wednesday night with arch-rival Ole Miss in town. Moore’s defense on Rebels guard Jaylen Murray, who scored 21 points in a win over the Bulldogs in Oxford last month, helped MSU hold the visitors to 27 second-half points and take control late in an 83-71 victory.
“He was super aggressive tonight. He finished really well, even in some traffic with some trees around him,” Jans said. “He was relentless for the most part on defense, and I thought he just had a different mindset. I’ve been a little disappointed with him. He just hasn’t been as motored up as he had been in the past, and so I’m proud of him.”
The Bulldogs (18-8, 7-6 Southeastern Conference) controlled the paint on the offensive end early, even with a surprising change in their starting lineup — Jimmy Bell Jr. started for the first time since the SEC opener on Jan. 6 at South Carolina, with Tolu Smith coming off the bench in a decision that Jans said was between himself and Smith.
Bell tallied MSU’s first four points before Smith checked in after three and a half minutes. Smith looked as energetic as he has all season, scoring seven points within his first two minutes of action. He finished with 24 points — 18 of them in the opening half — in 25 minutes, his best offensive game in a month.
“Whenever they played the small ball lineup, we were committed to running everything we had to just go right at the rim,” Jans said. “We started feeling confident that way. We even attacked their big guys a little bit more than we did (in the first meeting). We talk about paint touches all the time around here, and so many good things happen when you get the ball in the paint. You draw fouls more, you get closer to the basket, you draw the defense.”
The Bulldogs got to the free throw line 39 times compared to 21 for Ole Miss (19-7, 6-7), and would have pulled away sooner had they shot better than 14-for-27 at the line in the second half. MSU built a double-digit lead in the first half, but the Rebels used a 15-2 run to go ahead by four at the break. Matthew Murrell led Ole Miss with 23 points, 16 coming in the first half.
That momentum evaporated almost immediately after halftime as the Bulldogs kept attacking the basket and took away the Rebels’ best weapon — the 3-pointer. Ole Miss shot 40 percent from deep in the teams’ first matchup, but MSU held the Rebels without a 3-point make for the entire second half until the final minute of the game.
“GTB. Guard the ball,” said Moore, who finished with 12 points on 5-for-7 shooting. “That’s all we’ve been stressing is just guard the ball in practice and in our preparation. There wasn’t too much that we changed. We just had a little bit more grit to us on defense.”
A 14-2 Bulldogs run gave MSU the lead for good and brought the Humphrey Coliseum crowd to life. KeShawn Murphy scored seven points during that stretch and 12 in the game, including a corner 3-pointer that prompted an Ole Miss timeout — mere minutes after Rebels head coach Chris Beard picked up a technical foul. Jans was also called for a technical later in the game as both coaches were barking at the officiating crew throughout the night.
Cameron Matthews, per usual, was also the Bulldogs’ defensive linchpin, hustling at one point to pick up a loose ball off a deflected pass even though two Ole Miss players were closer. He finished with 11 points, draining his second 3-pointer of the season, as well as three steals.
“The message was bottling up those first 10 minutes in the first half, how we played defense, and trying to implement that again,” Matthews said. “Just trying to guard the ball, be real active and be in attack mode. I took what the defense gave me.”
The Rebels’ efficiency at the foul line helped them cut the deficit to four, but a big 3-pointer by D.J. Jeffries, who looked fully healthy in his first extended playing time since injuring his knee at Alabama on Feb. 3, pushed the margin back to eight. Ole Miss went five and a half minutes without a field goal before Austin Nunez’s 3-pointer with under 30 seconds left.
MSU hits the road on Saturday night to play an LSU team coming off back-to-back ranked wins over South Carolina and Kentucky.
“We always want more,” Jans said. “We’re greedy. It’s how we’re built. We have a chance to be playing our best basketball down the stretch. … We’re trending in that direction. I still believe we have things we can get better at. We can still tidy some things up, but we’re definitely playing a good brand of basketball for this particular team right now.”
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