The theatrical seating and stage-like basketball court at Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gymnasium set an appropriate scene for Mississippi State’s game against the Commodores Saturday night. The 14,168 that had their ticket punched witnessed a great show in two acts.
At the show’s end, the Bulldogs took a bow as the heroes who held off a scrappy Vanderbilt team 72-69.
“A lot of strange things have happened in this building over the years,” Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said. “For our kids to find a way to come in here and win tells you the toughness, the heart and the character our team has.”
Matt Freije’s play stole the show early, and hot outside shooting by both teams fueled a high flying first half of the game. The Vanderbilt forward scored 17 first half points and the Commodores hit 8-12 from behind the three-point arc.
Mississippi State (23-2, 12-2 SEC), however, matched Vanderbilt (18-7, 7-7 SEC) shot for shot. The Bulldogs were 6-10 from behind the arc in a nip-andtuck first half that saw neither team lead by more than six points.
Timmy Bowers tipped in his own missed shot at the buzzer to give the Bulldogs a 43-42 lead at intermission.
“I thought we took their (Vanderbilt’s) best shot the first half from the three point line,” Stansbury said. “They had 24 points at halftime from the three point line, but they were still trailing.”
While the first act was Freije’s show, Lawrence Roberts and Branden Vincent took center stage in their familiar ‘Road Warriors’ role in the second act.
After both teams shot over 50 percent from the field in the first half, neither team could crack 30 percent in the second half. The game’s focus switched from the perimeter to the paint. The two Bulldog big men dominated the paint in the second half as the pace of the game changed entirely.
Roberts came to life in the second half as he scored 10 of his 18 points and grabbed 11 of his 14 boards for yet another double-double while Vincent’s tight defense on Freije kept the Vandy star from shining.
After scoring 17 first half points, Freije was held to nine points on 2-12 shooting in the second half.
Vincent hounded Freije the entire second half on the defensive end, forcing him into taking bad shots. He finally vanquished Freije for good with a titanic block on a dunk attempt that knocked the pre-season SEC Player of the Year to the floor and sent the ball back towards half court.
“I just felt like that if he was going to take any kind of shot it was going to be a bad shot,” Vincent said. “I was going to jump, contest it, foul him or anything. He just wasn’t going to get those good looks he was having in the first half. There ain’t no free points down in the paint.”
While Vincent was the defensive stopper, he also teamed with Roberts on the offensive glass. The two gathered rebound after rebound in traffic. Roberts’ put-back basket after gathering two consecutive offensive rebounds in traffic gave MSU the lead for good at 57-55 with 8:22 left.
“There was one stretch where he (Roberts) just took the backboards over,” Stansbury said. “They were his. He got tough rebounds in traffic and those are the ones you have to get.”
“I just had to be aggressive,” Roberts added. “That’s how bad I wanted this game. We had to step up and control the backboards and knowing that if we did all that we’d walk away with the W.”
Mississippi State dominated the boards 45-32 for the game.
“You can look at one statistic and tell which team was the most physical, the toughest and played with the most energy,” Stansbury said. “That’s rebounding, and we outrebounded them 11 in the second half.”
As in most good plays and movies, the supporting actors play just as big a role as the stars. And for the Bulldogs, it was supporting player Timmy Bowers, not the star Roberts that put the final nail in the Commodore’s coffin with a baseline drive for a bucket that put the Bulldogs up 67-61 with 2:12 left.
“Guys have to step up and make plays,” Bowers, who finished with 16 points, said. “I want to be the one to take the clutch shot but if I can’t be the one to take the shot, I want to be the one to create for somebody else.”
Vanderbilt had one final chance to tie the game up after Winsome Frazier fumbled an inbounds pass out of bounds with 0.7 seconds left, but Vandy’s full court pass was broken up by Frazier to preserve the victory.
Thanks to the star Roberts, the supporting actor Bowers and the defensive stopper Vincent, the Bulldogs were able to leave the stage at Memorial Gymnasium with the critic’s approval.