It came down to the last game on the last day of the regular season, but a winner has finally emerged from the muddled muck of the Southeastern Conference Western Division.In front of 9,443 at Humphrey Coliseum, Mississippi State beat preseason favorite Alabama 91-67 Sunday, winning its first share of an SEC West championship since 2004.
“This team didn’t do it the easy way,” Stansbury said. “After we lost to South Carolina at home with a young team like this, it would have been easy to fold. But this team didn’t.
“I’m proud of what they’ve accomplished.”
Mississippi State (17-12, 8-8) finishes the season tied for the division’s top spot with the Mississippi Rebels, but with its 7-3 division record, MSU wins the tiebreaker and will have a No. 1 seed and first-round bye in the SEC tournament.
“A lot of people doubted us,” said junior center Charles Rhodes, who led the team Sunday with 18 points and four blocks. “So we made sure that we were going to come out and prove them wrong.”
Alabama (20-10, 7-9) led briefly early in the game, but by halftime the Bulldogs had amassed a 41-29 lead that they would never lose in the second half.
“We climbed a mountain in the second half and got it back to two,” Alabama head coach Mike Gottfried said. “Then they made another push, and we just weren’t ready or couldn’t handle that. They were tougher than we were.”
The Bulldogs out-hustled the Tide in the game, earning 11 steals and forcing 21 turnovers in the game.
“From that point (when the Tide pulled to within two), we outscored them by 30 points in the next 11 minutes,” MSU head coach Rick Stansbury said. “I never did feel like they got control of that game in the post all day long. They had their moments but never got control.”
Five Bulldogs, including Rhodes, finished with double-digit point totals in the win.
Reginald Delk had 16 points, followed by freshman Ben Hansbrough’s 13 and Jamont Gordon’s 11.
Jarvis Varnado and senior Dietric Slater each chipped in 10.
Alabama center Jemareo Davidson was the leading scorer for the Tide with 16.
The loss drops the Tide to fifth place in West.
They will play Kentucky in the first round of the SEC tournament, with the winner playing MSU on Friday.
Despite earning the Western Division title with the win, the Bulldogs will need to improve on its 8-8 conference record with a couple of tournament wins if it hopes to be selected for the NCAA tournament.
According to Stansbury, there’s no question his team is good enough to be considered a tournament team.
They just happen to play in a division where everyone is good enough.
“I think it tells you how good [the West] is (to have an 8-8 team win it),” he said. “We just beat each other up. Everybody in the West is as good as any of the top 64 teams in the country.
“If you go over there [to Atlanta] and win two, I don’t see how they can keep anyone from this division out.