STARKVILLE — Humphrey Coliseum fell silent late in the first half Wednesday night, and it was hard not to fear the worst for Mississippi State star Josh Hubbard after he slipped while trying to catch a pass from Riley Kugel against Alabama.
The sophomore guard was down on the floor for nearly a minute before limping off the court with support from a trainer, without putting any weight on his left foot. But less than three minutes of game time later, Hubbard was back in action, and his best was yet to come.
Hubbard, mired in a shooting slump for several weeks, exploded for a career-high 38 points including 25 in the second half. With No. 14 MSU down by three in the final 10 seconds, though, Hubbard could not cleanly handle a dribble handoff from Kugel, and the officials ruled that Hubbard had touched the ball last. The turnover sealed an 88-84 Bulldogs loss to the No. 4 Crimson Tide, MSU’s seventh straight defeat against Alabama.
“It was more on me than Riley,” Hubbard said. “Just one of those you wish you could just get back.”
The Bulldogs (16-5, 4-4 Southeastern Conference) raced out to a six-point lead after four minutes after Hubbard drilled two 3-pointers 27 seconds apart, but the Crimson Tide, who jack up 3-pointers with reckless abandon, soon found their rhythm offensively. Chris Youngblood, a reserve guard making just his second start of the season and a 30% 3-point shooter entering the night, led Alabama with 23 points and was 7-for-10 from behind the arc.
MSU kept the Crimson Tide’s best player, Mark Sears, quiet early, but Sears is used to teams sending extra defenders his way. He turned the ball over seven times but had nine assists, and he scored 12 of his 17 points in the second half.
“He’s obviously one of the best players in college basketball,” Bulldogs head coach Chris Jans said. “We expected him to be very aggressive and he was. He had nine assists because we had him bottled up quite a few times, and he made some really good plays out of the double-teams. He also had seven turnovers, which turned into offense for us at least a few times. It’s just a game within the game.”
Down by eight at the time of Hubbard’s injury, MSU battled back to briefly retake the lead in the first half thanks to five quick points from KeShawn Murphy. But Youngblood’s fourth 3-pointer of the half put Alabama (18-3, 7-1) back in front, and a Grant Nelson 3-point play with five seconds left gave the Crimson Tide a five-point lead at the break.
All 25 of the Bulldogs’ points during a 10-minute stretch in the second half belonged to either Hubbard or Murphy, who finished with 18 on 8-for-13 shooting. Hubbard made six 3-pointers on a season-high 15 attempts, and outside of Claudell Harris going 2-for-3 from deep, the rest of the team was 0-for-7. After a slow start to the half, MSU made 10 of 11 shots over eight minutes, punctuated by Michael Nwoko’s dunk that put the Bulldogs ahead by two.
But MSU just could not run Alabama off the 3-point line. The Crimson Tide were 8-for-12 from long range in the second half against a Bulldogs team that entered the night 15th out of 16 SEC teams in perimeter defense.
“Alabama, even though they haven’t been shooting as well as they have in years past, they’re certainly very capable of getting hot,” Jans said. “We were intent on trying to turn them over as much as we could. I felt like we were pretty aggressive with two on the ball a lot, but credit to their handlers. They survived some pretty tough traps. And when you’re committed like that and you don’t get a tip or a deflection or a steal, when they throw it out it’s hard to rotate.”
The teams traded blows down the stretch before Alabama big man Grant Nelson drilled a 3-pointer from the corner to give the visitors the lead for good. With MSU down one in the final minute, Hubbard found a wide-open Murphy in transition off a missed free throw, but Murphy missed the layup, helping the Crimson Tide ice the game.
“A lot of people are going to say he lost us the game, but that’s not true,” Hubbard said. “He competed at a high level, and we were in that game because of him. It was possessions before that, the reason we lost that game, in the first half especially.”
All four of the Bulldogs’ SEC losses have come against teams ranked above them in the AP poll. MSU has three wins against teams that are currently ranked, and has a chance to earn another Saturday at home against No. 20 Missouri, but is still looking for that elusive top-10 victory.
“At this point, we’re not a top-10 team,” Jans said. “I don’t like saying that or admitting that, because I like this team. I’m confident in this team. I believe in this group. That’s what I told them before the game, what I told them during the game, what I told them after the game. We just have to stay the course. Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve. It’s a very hurt locker room from the top down. You expect them to be hurt. They poured their heart out there.”
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