STARKVILLE – Ole Miss hadn’t swept Mississippi State in men’s basketball in 17 years.
Stefan Moody didn’t care.
Moody, the Rebels’ leading scorer on the season, delivered big shot after big shot while scoring 23 second-half points to lift Ole Miss to a 71-65 win over MSU. The sharp-shooting junior finished with a career-high total of 29 points on eight-of-12 shooting from three-point range.
“He just got hot,” said MSU guard Fred Thomas. “Sometimes you get that tunnel vision where everything goes is. He had that tonight, we couldn’t stop it.”
Moody’s big game boiled down to a scorching-hot spurt down the stretch. With the Bulldogs are Rebels locked in a back-and-forth affair, Moody hit three consecutive treys in 90 seconds for the Rebels, lifting Ole Miss from a 52-52 tie to a 61-57 lead with just over three minutes to go.
In all, Moody hit six of his eight three-pointers in the second half to lift Ole Miss from a 32-27 halftime deficit to the eventual six-point win.
“(Moody) just took over the game in the last four minutes,” said Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy, who won for just the second time at MSU in nine seasons. “He made great shots. Coming down the stretch, I got in the huddle and challenged our guys to see who wanted to make a play. He was the only one who spoke up. So I drew up a play for him to get a shot, and he made three big ones.”
For Moody, the charge from Kennedy in the Ole Miss huddle was more than enough motivation to close out the Bulldogs.
“It went exactly like coach said it did,” said Moody. “He challenged us. He was looking for somebody to make plays. I spoke up and said that I wanted the ball, and he gave it to me.”
Moody’s big night spoiled a solid effort from the Bulldogs, who led by as many as 10 points in the first half. After limiting Ole Miss to just 11 total rebounds and 35.7 percent shooting in the first 20 minutes, the Bulldogs allowed the Rebels to own the glass at a 19-11 clip and shoot 50 percent in the second half. That, combined with Moody’s offensive fireworks, sent the Bulldogs to their fourth-straight loss to the Rebels.
“We’ve got to look at what beat us here,” said Ray. “At the end of the day it was the fact we didn’t rebound and didn’t follow scouting report on one player. We really didn’t do a good job following game plan on moody. He’s a great shooter. You let him get his feet set, he’s going to make most of those shots.”
Unfortunately for MSU, Thursday night’s showdown was almost a carbon-copy of the Bulldogs’ earlier loss to the Rebels in Oxford. In that one, MSU led by four at the half only to watch Jarvis Summers score 22 second-half points in a six-point Rebels’ victory. This time, MSU led by five at the break and gave up 23 points to Moody after the break in another six-point setback.
“It was the same thing,” said Thomas. “We know rivalry games are always going to be a fight. They got the last punch.”
By doing so, Ole Miss (18-8 overall, 9-4 in Southeastern Conference play) bolstered its already-strong NCAA Tournament resume. On the flip side, MSU (12-14, 5-8) failed in its bid to climb back to .500 on the season and lost for the third time in the last four games.
It didn’t always look like the Bulldogs would lose, though. In a game where each team took a turn controlling the action, the Bulldogs dominated the early part of the first half, racing to a 26-16 lead. MSU did so on the strength of strong first halves by guard Craig Sword, who finished with 19 points, and Gavin Ware, who scored eight early points.
But while MSU started the game on the right foot, Ole Miss did so in the second half. Behind two early three-pointers by Moody, the Rebels used a 12-2 run in the first four minutes of the second half to take control.
The Rebels led by eight points on two occasions in the second half, but the Bulldogs continually fought back, tying the game with six minutes, 10 seconds left. That set the stage for Moody’s heroics, though, and the 5-foot-9 guard scored nine points in the next 82 seconds to give Ole Miss the momentum it needed to walk out with a win. It was just the Rebels’ second win in Humphrey Coliseum since that 1998-99 season.
“Mississippi State is a much better team than their numbers indicate,” said Kennedy. “To come in here and get a win, it’s huge. Not just because of who it is but because of what it means for our season.
“I’m just excited to be able to come into a hostile environment and get out of here with a win. MSU played awfully well.”
One person who was unfazed by the hostile environment, and blissfully unaware of the Rebels’ recent struggles in Starkville, was Moody.
“I’m new here, so none of that really mattered to me,” said Moody. “I was just trying to get a win.”
For the Bulldogs, the loss to Ole Miss is the first game in a three-game stretch against NCAA Tournament hopefuls, a run that includes a Saturday afternoon game against No. 18 Arkansas before No. 1 Kentucky pays a visit on Wednesday.
On the night, MSU placed three scorers in double figures, led by Sword’s 19. Ware finished with 13 and junior forward Travis Daniels had 12.
Moody was the only Rebel that reached double digits.
Roquez Johnson, MSU’s lone senior starter and the Bulldogs’ leading scorer this year at 10.4 points per game, was not around to see the finish of the game. The Montgomery, Alabama native was struck by an elbow from Ole Miss center Sebastian Saiz late in the first half, and subsequently left the game with an apparent head injury. He did not return.
“I can’t say that was the reason we lost the game because that would be unfair to Ole Miss,” said Ray. “But losing Roquez was huge.”
With Johnson out of the lineup, the Rebels feasted on an MSU frontcourt that included freshmen Oliver Black and Fallou Ndoye, out-rebounding the Bulldogs 21-11 once Johnson went down.
Ultimately, though, the difference in the game was MSU’s inability to prevent Moody from knocking down dagger after dagger in the second half.
“He got hot,” said Sword. “And when you get hot like that, you don’t miss. He played a great game.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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