Jamont Gordon glared at the game clock late in Saturday’s game at South Carolina to see the Bulldogs trailing the Gamecocks 49-47 with 17.6 seconds remaining in the contest.After rebounding South Carolina point guard Devan Downey’s free-throw misfire, he rushed down the court and attempted to find a shot which would give his team the lead. Gordon wasted no time in locating the shot and put up a 3-pointer, which didn’t find its way into the basket.
Teammate Jarvis Varnado was there to collect the carom, but his put-back attempt got wedged between the rim and the backboard. The possession arrow belonged to South Carolina, meaning the Gamecocks would get the basketball back in their hands with 11 seconds remaining.
The basketball, in limbo between the backboard and rim, was symbolic of the Bulldogs’ NCAA Tournament chances, which could have also been in limbo with a loss at South Carolina.
But then the Bulldogs received a second chance. With 1.1 seconds left in the game and trailing the Gamecocks 50-47, South Carolina forward Evaldas Baniulis slapped Ben Hansbrough’s arm while he was shooting a 3-pointer from the corner.
The entire game rested in the hands of the Poplar Bluff, Mo., native. And he sank all three of them as if he felt no pressure at all.
Hansbrough’s three free throws sent the Bulldogs (18-8, 9-3 SEC) to overtime, where they outscored the Gamecocks (12-14, 4-8 SEC) and earned a 61-56 victory in front of 15,093 fans at the Colonial Center.
“We found ways to make plays and found ways to win,” head coach Rick Stansbury said in a post-game radio show. “It’s never easy to win on the road, and this was a huge road win for us.”
Finding those ways to win was a true test for Mississippi State.
Only 15 seconds into the overtime period, Gordon was called for his fifth foul of the game while penetrating into the lane and taking a shot toward the basket. Gordon’s early overtime exit combined with the exit of Varnado, who fouled out with seven seconds remaining in regulation and finished the game with seven points, 12 rebounds and five blocks, made for a difficult situation for the Bulldogs.
“We had to find a way to play in overtime without our center and point guard,” Stansbury said.
The way they countered the early exodus of their two starters was by turning to senior guard Charles Rhodes. The Gamecocks seemingly never found an answer to Rhodes’ domination of the frontcourt throughout the contest, and he took advantage of the mismatch. Rhodes scored six of the team’s 11 points in overtime and ended with a game-high 24 points and nine rebounds.
“Charles Rhodes was a load for us today,” South Carolina head coach Dave Odom said. “He was very aggressive taking the ball to the basket, and he was hard to handle.”
South Carolina also had a player that Stansbury said is hard to handle. Downey came into the game as one of the highest-scoring players in the SEC, averaging 19.7 points per game. Stansbury said the primary goal for his team was to create a plan to minimize Downey’s damage, and the team did that in the form of a zone defense.
The Bulldogs typically adhere to a man-to-man defense, but they utilized that zone defense and held Downey to 19 points on 6-of-18 from the field.
“Our game plan was to stop Downey from getting to the lane,” Stansbury said. “If you can stop him from getting inside, you stop his passes and a lot of his shots.”
The zone also played a part in preventing the Gamecocks from getting into any sort of offensive rhythm and limited South Carolina to only 30.8 percent shooting in the game.
The Mississippi State victory snapped the three-game winning streak of the Gamecocks over the Bulldogs. And the victory, coupled with Kentucky’s win over Arkansas on Saturday, once again gave the Bulldogs a two-game lead in the SEC Western Division.
The Bulldogs will seek to maintain that lead as they face the Auburn Tigers (13-11, 3-8 SEC) at the Humphrey Coliseum on Wednesday at 7 p.m. In the meeting at Auburn earlier this season, the Bulldogs thoroughly dominated the Tigers en route to a commanding 83-64 win.