Mississippi State played some of its best basketball all season in its Feb. 1 win over South Carolina at Humphrey Coliseum.
For most of the game, anyway.
The Bulldogs led the Gamecocks by as many as 27 points in the second half but saw their advantage chipped down to 12 by a furious South Carolina run before the buzzer sounded. Mississippi State won 78-64, but coach Ben Howland wasn’t exactly happy with his team’s performance.
“You’ve got to play the whole 40 minutes,” Howland reminded reporters Tuesday.
That will be paramount as MSU (16-11, 7-7 Southeastern Conference) goes on the road to face South Carolina (16-10, 7-7 SEC) at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. The second matchup of the year between the two schools will be a big one as the Bulldogs fight to stay on the NCAA tournament bubble and the Gamecocks fight to get on it in the first place.
“Both teams are 7-7, fighting to get win No. 8 and stay above .500,” Howland said. “There’s a lot on the line here.”
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had Mississippi State as the 14th team out of the Big Dance as of Tuesday morning, so the Bulldogs would need much more than a win at Colonial Life Arena on Wednesday evening.
But they’ll have to start somewhere, and sweeping South Carolina — a team with a similar record if not a particularly similar résumé — would be a good beginning to whatever late-season surge MSU hopes to muster.
The Bulldogs won back-to-back games Friday and Sunday for the first time since Jan. 12 and Jan. 15, beating Missouri in an odd home-and-home series created by the Tigers’ COVID-19 cancellation of a Jan. 5 contest. MSU had little trouble Friday in a 68-49 home win but needed a late bucket from Shakeel Moore to win 58-56 in Columbia, Missouri.
“We were very fortunate to win on Sunday,” Howland said.
Now the Bulldogs will trade the SEC’s second-worst team — per KenPom.com — for its fourth. But South Carolina has looked anything but in recent games, riding a three-game win streak capped by Saturday’s 77-75 home win over LSU. Before that, the Gamecocks won consecutive road games, handling Georgia 80-68 and beating Ole Miss on a halfcourt buzzer-beater by James Reese V.
“They’re playing with a lot of confidence right now,” Howland said.
The seventh-year MSU coach said the biggest reason for that is the improved play of guard Jermaine Couisnard, who is second on the team with 11.0 points per game. Couisnard scored 33 on Saturday to lead the Gamecocks to their upset of the Tigers, a key win for South Carolina’s slim but nonzero tournament chances.
Couisnard has scored in double figures in five of South Carolina’s last nine games after playing in just six of the prior 11 without breaking 10 points a single time.
“He had a bunch of injuries early on, but he’s really rounded into shape,” Howland said. “He does so much at both ends of the floor.”
So does guard Erik Stevenson, who leads the Gamecocks with 11.4 points per game. Reese, who hit the winning shot against Ole Miss, and freshman guard Devin Carter both average more than nine points per contest.
South Carolina’s offense is the worst in the conference, but its defense is sixth in the league and No. 37 nationally. Howland said the Gamecocks play zone defense in every game and broke out a halfcourt zone press that worked well against LSU.
The pressure South Carolina put on Mississippi State late in that first matchup was effective, too. The Bulldogs had 14 of their 19 turnovers in the second half alone.
“We didn’t attack the press well in the last three minutes, and I thought our guys lost a little bit of focus,” Howland said. “We were up pretty big, and we had a number of turnovers that led to easy scores for them.”
Howland knows he can’t expect his team to build itself another 27-point lead Wednesday. Much like the Bulldogs’ second game against Missouri was far closer than their first, Howland expects a resilient South Carolina squad to give MSU a game in what will be an important contest for both teams.
“Frank Martin’s teams, they never quit,” Howland said. “They never give up. They’re going to fight until the bitter end. We know this is going to be a very difficult game in Columbia, South Carolina, and we’ve got to be ready for it.”
Dawg notes
Associate athletic trainer Seth Tisdale told Howland that guard Rocket Watts is “getting close” to a return, Howland said Tuesday. Watts has missed the past three games with an elbow injury.
“He’s able to do a number of things, but his ability to shoot and shoot with range is probably still not there,” Howland said of the former Michigan State guard.
Howland said he imagines Watts will return to action in the next three to five days but could not be certain.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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