TUPELO — RJ Melendez was already enjoying his best game offensively in a Mississippi State uniform, but with the Bulldogs fighting to close out a feisty McNeese team in the final seconds, Melendez made his biggest impact on the offensive glass.
MSU led by three with 15 seconds left as the shot clock wound down, and Josh Hubbard’s midrange jumper clanged off the back of the rim. Two Cowboys players were in position to secure the rebound, but Melendez wrestled it away from them both and McNeese was forced to foul him. Melendez knocked down both free throws as the No. 25 Bulldogs held on for a 66-63 victory at Cadence Bank Arena.
“He’s showing a little fire, which is great to see,” MSU head coach Chris Jans said. “He’s a wonderful kid and he works really hard. My confidence in him just continues to grow. He would have played more minutes, but he had some foul issues that we had to deal with. That was a big rebound. He was fired up about it, and hopefully he’ll just continue to elevate his play.”
On a night when the Bulldogs (9-1) had a hard time hitting shots, Melendez, making his third consecutive start, led MSU with 18 points on 6-for-12 shooting. He scored nine of the Bulldogs’ first 13 points to keep his team close as the Cowboys (5-5) had the lead for almost the entire first half.
McNeese took an eight-point lead, its largest of the game, on a Brandon Murray 3-pointer with less than four minutes remaining until halftime before MSU caught fire from long range. Claudell Harris nailed back-to-back triples 33 seconds apart to cut the Bulldogs’ deficit to two, and Hubbard connected twice from behind the arc in a 37-second span to put MSU in front. Javohn Garcia’s layup evened the score heading into the break.
Hubbard was the only Bulldog other than Melendez in double figures with 16 points, and he added five assists and two steals. He has 36 assists and just three turnovers through 10 games in his sophomore season, and has seven steals in his last four games.
“He’s becoming a better defender,” Jans said. “He’s been better in practice, and you could see it tonight. He just was more physical on the ball, he was more engaged off the ball and getting in the gaps and trying to scrape at the ball and get some deflections and hopefully some turnovers. It’s nice that people are seeing that from him.”
MSU threw the first punch in the second half, using six points in three minutes from Hubbard to help build a five-point lead. But the Cowboys got hot in the middle portion of the half, making eight of 10 shots during a stretch lasting nearly 10 minutes and surging back ahead. Joe Charles led all scorers with 19 points, more than double his per-game average, and sixth man Sincere Parker added 16.
The Bulldogs worked their way back by pounding the ball inside and earning trips to the free throw line. MSU missed all six of its 3-point attempts in the second half but was in the bonus with more than eight minutes left and in the double bonus for nearly five minutes, finishing 23-for-33 at the stripe compared with McNeese’s 10-for-17.
“We were getting the looks that we wanted, but we were just not hitting shots,” Melendez said. “We got them in foul trouble early (in the second half), so we were just saying, ‘Let’s attack the paint and get fouled. We’re going to get to the free throw line.’”
Two free throws from Cameron Matthews with less than five minutes remaining put the Bulldogs in front to stay as part of a 9-0 run. MSU held the Cowboys scoreless for more than three and a half minutes down the stretch and took advantage of its takeaways, with a 20-5 edge in points off turnovers.
Hubbard, Melendez, Matthews and Michael Nwoko each had two steals, with Matthews becoming the Bulldogs’ all-time leader in that category. He now has 218 career steals, breaking the 45-year-old record previously held by Ray White.
MSU has another in-state neutral-site game coming up Tuesday evening against Central Michigan in Jackson.
“That’s playing 40 minutes of Mississippi State basketball. Just wearing them down. Those things take a toll on teams, and it worked in our favor this game,” Matthews said. “It’s been a long journey. I’ve played a lot of games in this uniform. I’m grateful for the program and the university.”
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