Even after Tuesday night’s loss at Georgia Tech, Mississippi State is off to a strong start in non-conference play and controls its own destiny as to all of its postseason goals. The Dispatch takes a look here at what has gone right and wrong so far for the Bulldogs, who are 6-1 heading into Sunday’s home game against Southern.
Three up
Josh Hubbard
The freshman who scored 4,367 points over four years at Madison-Ridgeland Academy has been everything MSU could have hoped for and then some after flipping his commitment from Ole Miss to the Bulldogs following a coaching change in Oxford. MSU ranked dead last in all of NCAA Division I basketball in 3-point shooting percentage last year, but Hubbard has helped the Bulldogs in that area. He broke out in his first game at Humphrey Coliseum on Nov. 11, scoring 22 points on 5-for-8 from long range against Tennessee-Martin, and he later exploded for 29 points to lead MSU past Northwestern in the championship game of the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic.
The Bulldogs were a tad too reliant on Hubbard at times in the loss to the Yellow Jackets, but his scoring prowess will help MSU win games it may not have won a season ago.
Jimmy Bell Jr.
Playing for his fourth school in five years — he started his collegiate career at Saint Louis, then attended Moberly (Mo.) Community College before transferring to West Virginia — Bell was brought in to provide quality backup for star post player Tolu Smith. But Smith’s preseason foot injury forced Bell into a starting role, and he has handled it with aplomb. Through seven games, Bell is averaging 9.4 points and 10 rebounds, with a pair of double-doubles to his credit. If anything, the Bulldogs would have benefitted from letting him take more shots against Georgia Tech, when he went just 2-for-4 from the field and was held to six points. Along with Gai Chol and the recently-returned KeShawn Murphy, MSU has the pieces down low to survive until Smith makes his season debut.
Overall roster depth
Head coach Chris Jans keeps calling it a good problem to have. The Bulldogs deploy a full second unit, and Jans has said it is trivial to him who starts and who comes off the bench. Case in point: Hubbard is MSU’s leading scorer without having started a game. Alongside Bell, Dashawn Davis, Cameron Matthews, D.J. Jeffries and newcomer Trey Fort have started every game so far, and all are capable of delivering big offensive performances. On any given night, the Bulldogs have options who can carry the load. Shakeel Moore, who returned after missing the first two games due to a suspension, was also a starter and key contributor down the stretch last year.
Three down
Outside shooting
Hubbard and Fort have helped MSU move out of the cellar in this category, but the Bulldogs still rank 288th out of 351 Division I teams with a 3-point percentage below 30. That includes a 5-for-19 showing against Washington State on Nov. 18, a 5-for-23 performance against Nicholls six days later, and 7-for-30 in the loss to the Yellow Jackets. Jeffries, in particular, has struggled from behind the arc (8-for-28). Andrew Taylor, a graduate transfer from Marshall who was acquired to address this very issue, has played a total of 39 minutes and has not seen the court since a 12-second appearance in the Washington State game.
Finishing at the rim
In that aforementioned win over Washington State, MSU was a mere 13-for-29 on layups, and in the Georgia Tech loss, the Bulldogs made just 10 of 21 layups and managed only one dunk. These numbers will almost certainly improve once Smith returns, and the interior defense has been solid, but MSU cannot afford to miss too many easy looks from close range once the schedule difficulty increases.
Handling business on the road
Granted, the trip to Georgia Tech was the Bulldogs’ first true road game of the season, and they’ve handled themselves just fine in neutral-site games. But the Yellow Jackets came in carrying a home loss to UMass-Lowell and a blowout road defeat against Cincinnati, and were picked to finish 13th out of 15 teams in the ACC preseason poll. MSU looked lifeless for much of the first half Tuesday night, and while the defense improved in the second half, the offense never did.
A Dec. 23 game against Rutgers in Newark, N.J. will be a good test. While not technically a true road game, it will be played less than 30 miles from the Scarlet Knights’ home against a scrappy, defensive-minded team. The Bulldogs will not play another true road game until the SEC opener on Jan. 6 at South Carolina.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 24 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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