STARKVILLE — Playing top-10 teams on the road is never easy, but in its last two games away from Humphrey Coliseum, Mississippi State has made life harder on itself with its play in the first few minutes.
On Jan. 14 at No. 1 Auburn, the Bulldogs were down by 10 points after two minutes and 15 seconds in front of a packed house at Neville Arena, forcing head coach Chris Jans to take a timeout. With 21,678 fans in attendance Tuesday night in Knoxville, MSU fell behind No. 6 Tennessee by eight points in the first three minutes, and Jans again used an early timeout.
“As as staff, we’ve talked about it since the Tennessee game. We need to fix it from the top down. We’ve started well at home most of the time in these SEC games,” Jans said. “When you let the crowds get into the game, as much as you’d like to think it’s not a distraction and your team is mentally tough and can handle those types of things, in reality it’s why the home teams win more than the road teams.”
The No. 14 Bulldogs (15-4, 3-3 Southeastern Conference) missed eight of their first 10 shots against the Tigers and 12 of their first 13 against the Volunteers. In both of those games, they turned the ball over eight times in the first half.
MSU has had no such trouble starting fast at home. In their SEC opener against South Carolina, the Bulldogs raced out to leads of 15-2 and 28-6. Against Kentucky, MSU led by six after three and a half minutes, and last Saturday against Ole Miss, the Bulldogs scored the game’s first 11 points and were up 14 after seven minutes.
Sophomore guard Josh Hubbard remained cold early in Tuesday night’s game as MSU dug itself a double-digit hole, but he showed signs of breaking out of his slump by knocking down four of his last eight 3-point attempts. It was Hubbard’s best performance from behind the arc since the Bulldogs’ first meeting with South Carolina on Jan. 4.
“With Josh, it’s the whole game. People want to talk about scoring and shooting and all of that, but for me, how I look at it is getting him to understand that regardless of what’s going on on the offensive end, it can’t influence the other facets of the game,” Jans said. “That’s always a struggle for everybody, for the most part, and that’s an area where he can get better and he can mature as a two-way basketball player.”
Scouting South Carolina
The Gamecocks (10-9, 0-6) have played better in SEC play than their record suggests, their 35-point defeat in Starkville notwithstanding. South Carolina took Auburn to the wire at home on Jan. 11, losing by three, and the Gamecocks led for almost the entire game Wednesday night against No. 5 Florida before the Gators stormed back to win 70-69.
MSU held South Carolina’s best player, sophomore forward Collin Murray-Boyles, in check during the teams’ first matchup — with Cameron Matthews and KeShawn Murphy guarding him most of the time, Murray-Boyles had more turnovers (six) than points (five). Murray-Boyles still leads the Gamecocks with 15.3 points and 8.9 rebounds per game.
“I’d imagine he’s not happy about (how he played last time), and he’s going to do everything he can to make sure we see and feel how good a player he is,” Jans said. It’ll be a challenge. We were very physical with him, we bumped him off his spots, we ran people at him, we just tried to never let him where he wanted to go. We would never let him get comfortable. We tried to take him out of his normal game, but it’ll be a little bit different, more of a challenge at their place.”
South Carolina is the SEC’s worst offensive team and is second-to-last in field goal percentage and free throw percentage. The Gamecocks also allow the highest opponents’ field goal percentage in the conference and force just 10.4 turnovers per game, the fewest in the SEC.
Point guard Jamarii Thomas South Carolina’s only other scorer averaging double figures. The only Gamecock the Bulldogs had a hard time against was Zachary Davis, who had a game-high 22 points off the bench earlier this month.
“They’re snakebitten,” Jans said. “Auburn, they had a chance to win the game, and last night, with Florida, (they were) leading for 38-plus minutes at home, and it’s one of those games that you relive. One little possession, one little bounce, and the game changes. So for us to get our guys to have the right mentality will be a big deal. At the same time, why wouldn’t they? We’re coming off a loss. We need to find a way to win another SEC game.”
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