NASHVILLE, Tenn. — CBS college basketball insider Jon Rothstein has nicknamed Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans “The Dentist.”
The moniker stems from the physical, in-your-face defense Jans’ teams are known for playing. In essence, opposing teams look forward to playing against Jans and the Bulldogs about as much as they look forward to their next dentist appointment.
Southeastern Conference regular-season champion Tennessee had its dentist appointment Friday, and MSU smothered the Volunteers from the opening tip to the final buzzer in a 73-56 victory, sending the Bulldogs to the SEC Tournament semifinals for the first time since 2010.
“We really felt our only chance was to hit them in the mouth,” Jans said. “We had to come out and attack them and just get our toughness in the game and see if we could rattle them a little bit. Our plan was super aggressive in everything we were doing defensively and even offensively.”
No. 9 seed MSU (21-12) outscored Tennessee 42-14 in the paint, setting the tone on the first possession of the game. First-team all-conference post player Tolu Smith, who did not score a point in the first half in Thursday’s win over LSU, made a pair of layups within the first two minutes Friday. The Bulldogs’ other center, Jimmy Bell Jr., got in on the action as well with a couple of finishes in the post late in the first half.
But the leader of MSU’s offensive attack in the interior was forward Cameron Matthews, who finished with 18 points on a perfect 7-for-7 shooting. Matthews provided a highlight-reel moment with a rim-rattling dunk on a bounce pass from Bell, drawing a foul on the play to put the Bulldogs ahead by 16.
MSU fittingly ended the half when Dashawn Davis stole the ball from Dalton Knecht, and Shawn Jones Jr. cleaned up his missed layup and jammed the ball through the net just ahead of the buzzer to give the Bulldogs a 19-point lead.
“Please, please do count us out,” Matthews said. “Anything helps. Keep giving us a chip on our shoulder. It fuels the fire.”
Defensively, MSU put the clamps on Knecht for most of the game, holding the SEC Player of the Year to 4-for-17 shooting including 2-of-9 from 3-point range. The Volunteers (24-8) got 20 points from point guard Zakai Zeigler, the conference’s defensive player of the year, but overall they shot barely 30 percent from the floor and 24 percent from behind the arc.
Just like in the Bulldogs’ win over Tennessee at Humphrey Coliseum in January, the Volunteers came out hot to start after the break, opening the second half on a 9-2 run and bringing the orange-clad fans, who made up the majority of the Bridgestone Arena crowd, to life. But as he has done all season long, freshman guard Josh Hubbard connected from deep to spark a 9-0 spurt for MSU that opened up the Bulldogs’ largest lead of the afternoon.
“We’re not going anywhere, we’re going to punch back, and we did that,” Jans said. “Definitely had some similarities to (the teams’ regular-season meeting) where they slapped the press on us and we struggled a little bit. But we played well enough in the first half that their deficit was a little bit bigger than it was in Starkville, and that certainly brought a comfort level to us when they were trying to make their comeback.”
Tennessee again made things interesting with a 10-0 run, capped by back-to-back 3-pointers by Zeigler, to trim MSU’s lead to 60-48 with five minutes left. D.J. Jeffries had the answer for the Bulldogs with a corner 3-pointer and then a transition layup on a long pass from Matthews that effectively put the game away.
MSU shot better than 55 percent in the game, including 61.5 percent in the first half. Hubbard matched Matthews with 18 points, and the Bulldogs finished a combined 19-for-25 on layups and dunks to the Volunteers’ 4-for-15.
Friday represented MSU’s fourth Quadrant 1 win of the season and removed all remaining doubt about whether the Bulldogs belong in the NCAA Tournament. It was also their third victory of the year over a top-10 team in the AP Top 25, and set them up for a date with either Auburn or South Carolina in Saturday’s semifinals.
“We obviously went through a stretch there when we weren’t playing our best and weren’t having the outcomes,” Jans said. “But I kept telling them, ‘We’re a good basketball team and we’re playing other good basketball teams.’ It’s hard to win sometimes, especially on the road or even at home, depending on the quality of opponent. They all stuck together and they continue to fight and scratch and claw, and now we’re being rewarded for it.”
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