STARKVILLE – The clock is ticking closer to midnight for the Mississippi State men’s basketball season, but the fight isn’t over yet for the 2025-26 group. The team continues to take its lumps through a late-season SEC slump, looking for a way to get up off the mat.
The Bulldogs (11-12, 3-7 SEC) have just one win in their last eight games. The stretch of poor form includes blowout losses to ranked teams such as Alabama, Vanderbilt and Arkansas, but also missed opportunities against Ole Miss and Missouri that have seen them fall below the middle of the pack in the conference standings.
The team struggled to start the season, and those struggles resurfaced despite a six-game winning run to end nonconference play and takedowns of Texas and Oklahoma in January. The team is trying each week now to regroup as the number of opportunities to turn things around begins to run out.
“I’ve said this before, these young men have been resilient. They come to work with the right mindset and the right approach,” MSU head coach Chris Jans said. “If we weren’t having quality practices, I just wouldn’t talk about it. I wouldn’t say we’ve had bad ones, I just wouldn’t talk about it. Because we are (having quality practices).”
On Saturday, MSU fell behind early against No. 21 Arkansas after a 20-2 first-half run by the Razorbacks. It proved to make all the difference in the final score, but the reality was the team had several opportunities to cut down the deficit, only to fall further behind.
Jans and his players have both pondered the gap between gamedays and training, and why the positive attitude and strong weeks of practice haven’t shown up on court when the lights turn on, but they’re keeping their heads down with eight games left to play.
“I know I’ve said this before, that all that matters is how we play on gameday and the results of those particular games,” Jans said. “We were off yesterday. We’ll get together here in a few hours and put the game plan in for Tennessee. We’ll try to figure out a way to put our guys in the best position to play their best come Wednesday.”
The visitor this week is Tennessee, previously ranked No. 25 until a loss over the weekend to Kentucky. The Vols (16-7, 6-4 SEC) had won four straight before Saturday, and are currently tied for fifth in the conference standings.
“It’s another typical Coach Rick Barnes-type of team where they’re ultra physical in every aspect of the game,” Jans said of the Vols. “It’s when you play them, you know that you better be ready for a fistfight. That’s how they want to make the game, and he’s usually pretty successful at getting the game to be of that variety.”
Jans remarked that Barnes is a coach he’s admired long before he came into the SEC himself, and it’s easy to see why. Both coaches made a name for themselves with a physical brand of defense. That identity isn’t there as much this year for the Bulldogs, but with the emergence of young talent, there is hope for the future in the program.
Jamarion Davis-Fleming has become an important frontcourt player in his freshman year, and 6-foot-5 King Grace has become a wing/guard option with a change of pace and power off the bench.
Davis-Fleming will have a big opportunity on Wednesday, playing against veterans as well as a fellow highly regarded Class of 2025 recruit.
Tennessee’s top scoring duo of senior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie and freshman forward Nate Ament offer a dynamic threat on offense, and the freshman in particular has switched on lately with four 20-plus point outings in the last five games.
The physicality stands out from the men in orange as well, with four players averaging five or more rebounds per game (and another player averaging 4.9 rebounds per game). With the Bulldogs lacking depth in the frontcourt, it could be a long night taking on Ament, Jaylen Carey and J.P. Estrella.
“They’re always big and strong around the basket. This particular group doesn’t disappoint that way,” Jans added. “They’re a power basketball team. They certainly will pick their spots in transition, but they’re just fine being deliberate on the offensive end of the court in taking their time to get exactly what they want in trying to make the defense guard longer and make mistakes.”
The Bulldogs and Vols tipoff is set for 8 p.m. tonight and the game will be televised on ESPN2.
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