STARKVILLE — Next up for Mississippi State men’s basketball is a road test Saturday night at No. 21 Auburn.
For the Bulldogs (12-4, 1-3 Southeastern Conference), the contest will be a pivotal one. With a loss, MSU will fall to 1-4 in SEC play with No. 5 Tennessee coming to Starkville on Tuesday. With a win, coach Chris Jans’ team can secure its second ranked win, as Marquette is currently No. 25 in the country.
“Must win right there to get back on the right track,” forward Cameron Matthews said of Saturday’s contest.
The game represents roughly the midpoint of Mississippi State’s 2022-23 season, as the Bulldogs have played 16 games so far and have 15 contests — plus the SEC tournament and any postseason play — remaining.
Halfway through Jans’ first season in Starkville, here’s where the Bulldogs stand.
Upcoming schedule
Mississippi State will play a tough schedule through late January before things begin to soften up.
After Auburn (13-3, 3-1 SEC), MSU has a rematch with the Volunteers (14-2, 4-0 SEC), who whipped them 87-53 on Jan. 3 in Knoxville. Florida (9-7, 2-2 SEC) represents a winnable game on Jan. 21 in Starkville, but a trip to Tuscaloosa to face No. 4 Alabama (14-2, 4-0 SEC) is less so.
No. 17 TCU (13-3, 2-2 Big 12) will come to Humphrey Coliseum on Jan. 28 in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, making for a tough five-game stretch for the Bulldogs.
A trip to South Carolina on Jan. 31 and home games against LSU and Missouri in early February should help Mississippi State rack up some wins, though.
Free-throw shooting woes
A 7-for-22 performance from the line was a key contributor in State’s 58-50 loss Wednesday at Georgia.
The Bulldogs are shooting just 48.1 percent on free throws in their four SEC contests, an abysmal mark Jans said Wednesday has become “contagious.”
“It’s become a disease within our program, and it’s my job to try to help them,” Jans said.
Mississippi State is shooting below 60 percent from the stripe on the season, and only five Division I teams have worse marks this year.
Guard Eric Reed Jr. and forwards D.J. Jeffries and Tolu Smith have all seen their free throw percentages drop by more than 10 percent from last season to this one; Jeffries’ mark has decreased by twice that amount, going to 52.6 percent from 72.6 percent.
Jans said he’s done “everything under the sun” to turn the tide in that area, including mental coaching and one-on-one work. Currently, Matthews said, each player takes up to 100 free throws at each practice.
The Bulldogs are making them then — but not when it counts.
“I think it’s just, we can’t get in our head,” Matthews said. “We’ve just got to step up there and trust our form, trust our work and just try to imitate it from practice.”
Overall offensive struggles
It’s not just at the free throw line where Mississippi State has struggled to score.
The Bulldogs shot just 29.5 percent from the field against Georgia and just 25.9 percent from 3. On the season, they’re hitting only 30.3 percent of triples — 313th in the country.
It’s not quite as bad as Ben Howland’s final MSU team last season, which shot under 30 percent and ranked No. 345, but the Bulldogs’ offense as a whole is worse than any team Howland fielded.
Mississippi State ranks No. 181 — almost exactly in the middle of all Division I teams — in adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom.com. It’s enough to counteract a defense ranking seventh nationally and behind only Tennessee (No. 1) and Alabama (No. 6) in the SEC.
Jans said Wednesday he doesn’t expect the Bulldogs to end up among the nation’s top shooting teams but acknowledged MSU should be a better offensive team than it has been.
The loss at Georgia offered a frustrating glimpse at Mississippi State’s struggles, particularly late in the game.
“We had some great looks,” Jans said. “We had guys shooting the ball that we wanted to shoot the ball. We had some offensive rebound kickouts. And we didn’t knock it down.”
If Mississippi State is going to fix its offense, that will have to change.
NCAA tournament résumé
With a NCAA NET ranking of No. 50 as of Thursday, the Bulldogs would likely find themselves on the bubble if the NCAA tournament field was decided in mid-January.
Of course, there are still two months to go before any teams are selected to the field of 68. KenPom projects MSU to finish with a 20-11 record and an 8-10 mark in the SEC, which would make for an interesting decision come Selection Sunday.
Last season, Alabama made it as a No. 6 seed with a 19-13 record after the SEC tournament, but the Crimson Tide boasted the No. 2 schedule in the nation. MSU’s slate ranks just 158th so far.
LSU earned a No. 6 seed despite a 22-11 record and a 9-9 SEC mark last season. With a 22-12 record and an 11-9 mark in the Big Ten, Michigan State received a No. 7 seed. Michigan even made it at 17-14, and Indiana (20-13) and Rutgers (18-13) were First Four squads.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi currently pegs Mississippi State as a First Four team, while Jerry Palm of CBS Sports has the Bulldogs as a No. 10 seed.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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