The Mississippi State Bulldogs will look to continue their SEC West dominance this season when the Mississippi Rebels visit Humphrey Coliseum Saturday afternoon.
The Rebels won three out of their last five games in the SEC after starting off league play 0-3.
However, all of Mississippi’s wins came at home and the Rebels are coming off a 64-51 loss at Georgia.
Forward Justin Reed leads the Rebels. The SEC Player of the Year candidate is averaging 19.1 points and 8.3 rebounds per game including scoring 32 points in the Rebels’ upset win over No. 24 ranked South Carolina last Saturday.
“I’ve got a nightmare I’ve got to worry about Saturday,” Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said. “(Reed) plays as hard as you can possibly can play and he mixes it with great talent. He’s just a great player.”
Reed can expect a battle inside with Bulldog forward Lawrence Roberts. Roberts is averaging a double-double per game with 16.6 points and 10.0 rebounds. Roberts is coming off an Auburn game where he scored 14 points and gathered 11 rebounds.
This is the second time this season the Bulldogs and the Rebels have competed. The Dawgs left Oxford with a 61-54 win on Jan. 7 in the first SEC contest of the year. The Bulldogs were down 10 points with eight minutes left in the game but closed with a 22-5 run to earn the victory.
Although MSU has won five consecutive games in this rivalry, they have been decided by an average of only four points. Last year the Dawgs won by one point in Oxford on a Derrick Zimmerman lay up with 1.9 seconds remaining. They then had to go to overtime to defeat the Rebels by four in Starkville. All of the close losses has UM coach Rod Barnes shaking his head.
“It’s hard to say any one thing we could change to get over the hump,” Barnes said. “One day the tide is going to change and hopefully Saturday will be that day.”
Stansbury and the Dawgs hope to make sure that Saturday is not the day the streak comes to an end.
“I don’t put any stock into previous games,” Stansbury said. “I don’t even think about the five in a row, I just worry about the next game.”