All those people who thought Mississippi State had a chokehold on the Western Division of the Southeastern Conference one week ago had better check again.The once-dominant Bulldogs (14-7, 5-2 SEC), who had an unblemished conference record and were ranked 25th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll, now find themselves in a tie with the Arkansas Razorbacks for the division lead.
Two consecutive conference setbacks to the Razorbacks and the conference-leading Tennessee Volunteers have jeopardized Mississippi State’s dominance.
“Two losses in a row affect us a lot in the Western Division in the SEC,” Bulldog senior Charles Rhodes said. “We just have to figure out what we’re doing wrong and correct it.”
The Bulldogs will be in search of a win to avoid their first three-game losing streak of the season when the Alabama Crimson Tide (13-9, 2-5 SEC) travel to the Humphrey Coliseum on Wednesday night for a 7 p.m. tipoff.
Mississippi State won 66-56 in the Jan. 19 meeting between the two teams at Coleman Coliseum. The contest marked the Crimson Tide’s fourth loss in a row to open its conference schedule.
Since that loss, however, Alabama has won two out of its three games. The Crimson Tide trounced in-state rival Auburn 97-77 and suffered a narrow 93-86 loss to No. 7 Tennessee last Tuesday.
Alabama’s latest win was an 81-72 victory over LSU, which was a win Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried described as “gutsy”.
“It was a tough and hard-fought win,” he said after Saturday’s game. “I think we had a lot of guys that made some key plays.”
Alabama junior forward Richard Hendrix scored 19 points and collected 17 rebounds in the Crimson Tide’s victory.
Hendrix had a tremendous impact on the latest meeting between his team and Mississippi State’s squad by scoring a team-high 21 points and corralling six rebounds.
He also played a vital part in neutralizing the tandem of Rhodes and Jarvis Varnado. The duo was held to only nine points, and Varnado was limited to 21 minutes in the contest because of foul trouble.
Varnado, Rhodes and the rest of the Bulldogs have faced adversity since the last meeting between the two schools.
They conquered Ole Miss in an 88-68 drubbing on Jan. 26 before dropping a 78-58 decision to Arkansas last Wednesday.
Follow that up with Saturday’s close loss to Tennessee, and it shows that Mississippi State has seen the best of times and the worst of times in the span of only one week.
“You can’t get too low on one loss or too high on one win,” Mississippi State head coach Rick Stansbury said after Saturday’s loss. “You learn your lessons from this one, and the next one is the only game that matters.”
The lesson that sophomore guard Barry Stewart said he learned from the game against Arkansas is that the team should never give up, and the players displayed their understanding of the lesson during the comeback in the game against Tennessee.
“That 20-point loss at Arkansas … we learned from it and forgot about it,” Stewart said. “I think [Tennessee] was up in the second half, and we made a push. It shows how much character we have.”
The Crimson Tide also showed determination by defeating two of its last three opponents and hanging in its game against Tennessee.
Stewart said he’d been watching Alabama and knows the Bulldogs have their work cut out for them on Wednesday.
“We’re going to be excited,” he said. “We’ve been watching them since the last time we played them, and they’re doing a decent job right now. We’ll be ready for them.