STARKVILLE — I.J. Ready’s final parting gift from Humphrey Coliseum was a net.
For Ready’s Senior Night on Saturday, the final home game of his career, Mississippi State changed the nets hanging over the floor where Ready has played a significant portion of his 3,013 career minutes. As a gift on his way out, Ready found one of the old nets waiting for him in the locker room after MSU’s 88-76 win over LSU.
“It was a great thing for I.J. to go out winning his last home game with his parents here and playing as well as he did,” MSU coach Ben Howland said. “He really played like a senior, like the one senior we had.”
Being the team’s only senior, it was made clear to Ready before the game that the team was rallying around him for its final game at home.
“It’s crazy to hear all the young guys say, ‘He has to finish on a good note,'” Ready said on Friday.
Against LSU, playing for Ready meant making shots for him.
Ready played the role of facilitator Saturday, dishing out 13 assists compared to just six field goal attempts. It turned into one of MSU’s best offensive performances in recent memory, scoring the most points it has in a win since Jan. 25 and most points overall since Feb. 7. MSU’s 48 first-half points and 18-point lead at the break was its most since leading Oregon State 45-19 on Dec. 1.
Ready thought it was the team’s best offensive performance since its three-game winning streak near the beginning of SEC play; sophomore guard Xavian Stapleton, who tied his career high with 14 points off the bench, gave the credit to Ready.
“The numbers speak for themselves, he had 13 assists. There ain’t too many people doing that,” Stapleton said. “He always makes the right play in the right spot at the right time.”
In reality, no one in the SEC has done that this season: 13 assists set a new single-game high for the conference this season. It was a career high for Ready and the sixth-most in a game in school history. It bumped his career assist number up to 394.
Ready’s assist numbers led to a balanced scoring distribution, in which MSU scored 88 points with no Bulldog having more than 18. Sophomore guard Quinndary Weatherspoon led the team with 18, followed by Stapleton’s 14 and 14 more from sophomore forward Aric Holman. Ready, freshman forward Schnider Herard, freshman guard Mario Kegler and freshman guard Eli Wright all had at least seven points.
“Nobody cared who was getting shots and who scored,” Ready said.
MSU assisted 21 of its 36 made field goals while turning the ball over just 11 times.
The assist number was one of many in which MSU’s desire to send Ready out with a winning record was made evident. In addition to Stapleton tying his career high, MSU shot 54.5 percent from the floor, just the eighth time it has shot 50 percent or better all season.
Ready hit that 50-percent benchmark himself, making three of his six attempts. Before exiting the game to a standing ovation with roughly thirty seconds left, fans courtside were heard telling Ready to shoot a 3-pointer: a successful one would have given him 10 points and his first double-double of the season. Ready did not attempt the 3; he had his mind on another benchmark.
“I was more on them about missing wide open shots because I wanted to have a chance at 16 (assists),” Ready said; 16 assists is the current MSU record for single-game assists.
As Ready exits Humphrey Coliseum with accolades, he also exits with a claim to whatever future success MSU may have: Howland asserted earlier in the week Ready’s leadership has earned, ” a lot,” of credit for what the rest of the roster, all underclassmen, does in the rest of its MSU career.
He has already set his own expectation for them.
“I’ll be calling these guys next year, they better have a 20-win season,” Ready said. “They have all the tools and the ability to do it. They think I’ll be gone next year, but they’ll hear a lot from me if that doesn’t happen.”
Howland said of Ready, “I can’t say how proud I am of I.J. and how he’s evolved as a player and as a person in my tenure. I’m really proud of him and he’s going to be a successful person in life, beyond basketball, and that’s the most important thing.”
MSU will face LSU again in the first round of the SEC Tournament on Wednesday in Nashville. MSU won the first two meetings by an average margin of 14.5 points.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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