STARKVILLE – Mississippi State men’s basketball ended its regular season campaign at home on Saturday with a 102-96 defeat to Georgia. It was another case of poor defense costing head coach Chris Jans’ team
The MSU Bulldogs came out and played one of their best halves of offensive basketball all season, taking a 47-42 halftime lead behind 16 points from Josh Hubbard and nine from Ja’Borri McGhee. As a unit, they shot 19-26 from the floor and hit 5-6 from the foul line.
The senior wore a padded wrap on his left shoulder during senior day proceedings, as well as whenever he was on the bench, but played through the injury to good effect in the first half of action.
The team was able to find a rhythm late, hitting 8-8 shots in the final few minutes of the half to stay out in front of UGA. Though the visitors were able to score plenty of points themselves, the Bulldogs were able to turn defense to offense with six steals and 11 points off of seven Georgia turnovers.
The visitors were able to erase the deficit early in the second half, taking a 56-53 lead after five minutes of play. Kanon Catchings played a big role in the visitors establishing control of the contest, hitting 5-7 from beyond the arc and finishing with a team-high 23 points. He hit three shots from beyond the arc in the five minutes coming out of halftime, fueling a team-wide effort that saw them hit 17-29 from beyond the arc in the game.
Despite the swing in momentum and poor defense, MSU stuck around largely due to Hubbard’s ability to hit circus shots and create offense. He would finish with 42 points to lead MSU, his second-highest tally in a single game, and McGhee would add another 20 to help MSU stay afloat. But like many games before, it wasn’t enough. The team simply wasn’t good enough defensively to hold Georgia down.
MSU will await final seeding before discovering its opponent for next Wednesday in the SEC Tournament.
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