STARKVILLE — Quinndary Weatherspoon and Aric Holman are scoring in bunches.
Both players have used that success to push the Mississippi State men’s basketball team to a 10-1 start.
In a 64-48 victory against Little Rock on Wednesday, Weatherspoon, a junior guard scored 21 points to become the 37th player in program history to reach 1,000 career points. Weatherspoon leads MSU in scoring and is 15th in the Southeastern Conference at 14.5 points per game.
Holman, a junior forward, is close behind at 12.5 ppg., which puts him 20th in the league. The average is the best of Holman’s career.
But as well as Weatherspoon and Holman have played, MSU still would like to develop more consistent scoring support for its leaders. With two games remaining before the start of SEC play, MSU will try to build momentum in that direction when it takes on Southern Mississippi at 6 p.m. Saturday at Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson.
MSU coach Ben Howland said after the game against Little Rock that scoring distribution wasn’t a concern. He said sophomore guard Tyson Carter and freshman guard Nick Weatherspoon also are averaging more than 10 points per game.
Nick Weatherspoon could emerge as a third scoring option. Following a scoreless first half against Little Rock, he scored eight points in the second half and just missed an opportunity to stretch his double-digit scoring streak to three games.
Carter, a former standout from Starkville High School, is averaging 11.7 ppg. despite shooting 8-for-29 (27.5 percent) in his last four games. Carter scored 80 or his 129 points in games against Stephen F. Austin (25 points), North Dakota State (a career-high 35), and Dayton (20).
“Tyson will shoot better,” Howland said. “We need to get him more looks. He needs to be more active on the baseline, but people are playing him for that now.”
Another candidate to become a consistent scoring option is Abdul Ado. Howland said he would like to see the freshman forward be more aggressive offensively. Ado is averaging four ppg. in the last four games. He hasn’t scored in double digits since the second game of the season.
“I’ve never been a guy you need to depend on to score. I’m more of the guy that does the dirty jobs, rebounds,” Ado said. “Working on my offensive skills is one thing I’ve really paid attention to improving a lot.”
Sophomore guard Lamar Peters, who is averaging 7.5 ppg., is another possibility. Peters had four assists and two steals against Little Rock, but he went scoreless in two of his last three games.
MSU, which is shooting 47 percent from the field and 30.8 from 3-point range, could receive a lift against Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles enter the game in the bottom 25 percent of Division I in two-point defense (57.4 percent from the field, 330th out of 351 Division I teams) and 3-point defense (38.9, 299th). The matchup will be the second game of a four-year deal.
“I like the game against Southern Miss,” Howland said. “I was the one who proposed it originally. I think it’s a good thing. We recruit in Jackson quite a bit and so do they, so it’s nice for them to go home and play and get to enjoy Christmas.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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