STARKVILLE — Sam Purcell said earlier this week that he did not expect the score of Thursday night’s game to be in the 70s, citing Georgia’s prowess on the defensive end.
As it turned out, Purcell was half right. He just underestimated his own Mississippi State team.
MSU made more than half its shots, outscored UGA by 30 points in the paint and had 27 assists on 33 made field goals in a dominant 76-57 victory at Humphrey Coliseum, pulling into a tie for second place in the Southeastern Conference standings with its fifth consecutive win.
“It was beautiful,” Purcell said. “It starts with Lauren Park-Lane. She just has a way that everybody feels comfortable. She creates easy shots. And then Jessika Carter just taking up space. It’s like, ‘How do you want to guard us?’ Do you want to send two at Jess? Okay, then everybody else is open. If you want to press on the outside, well, Jess gets one-on-one coverage. When you have that many options as a team, I’m the luckiest coach in the world.”
State’s offense flowed freely all night long, starting with a 9-0 run late in the first quarter that gave MSU (20-5, 7-3 SEC) the lead for good. Jerkaila Jordan had eight points in the quarter and finished with a game-high 19 to go along with nine rebounds, four blocks and four steals. Park-Lane dished out nine assists, her most in a conference game this season, and Carter and Erynn Barnum cleaned up inside with 18 points each on a combined 17-for-25 shooting.
“We’re always feeding the hot hand and sharing the ball,” Park-Lane said. “I see it a lot more in practice, everybody’s looking for the extra pass. It’s good basketball.”
MSU outscored Georgia (11-12, 2-8) in every quarter, avoiding the third-quarter letdown that State has suffered several times in SEC play. UGA’s Javyn Nicholson scored 10 of her 18 points in the third, going on a personal 6-0 run to cut her team’s deficit to five, but the hosts closed the period on a 14-5 spurt. Darrione Rogers knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and added seven assists.
State scored 42 points in the paint and held Georgia to 12, outscoring UGA 18-0 there in the first half. MSU also held Georgia to 4-for-16 from 3-point range.
“Our focus was just finding the sweet spots, going into the middle area and playing power ball,” Jordan said. “We have bigs like Jessika Carter and Erynn Barnum and then shooters like Lauren and Debreasha (Powe) and (Rogers) who can knock it down. Just finding the sweet spots, slowing it down when we get in there and being patient and poised.”
Purcell’s team reached the 20-win mark with six regular-season games still to play and is in excellent shape to reach its second straight NCAA Tournament. MSU remains home Sunday to take on Florida, a team State defeated by 12 on the road on Jan. 22.
Jordan and Carter combined for 41 points and 28 rebounds in that first meeting, with Powe, Park-Lane and Rogers also in double figures as the Bulldogs put up 89 points, their high-water mark in an SEC game so far this year.
“I keep saying I’ve got a special group,” Purcell said. “From the freshmen to the fifth-years, they all came here for this vision, and this vision is real. We have to stay hungry. Have we arrived? No, we haven’t. But it’s real, and they believe. You start stacking wins, and the next thing you know, you’ve got chemistry.”
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