The Mississippi State University men’s basketball team defeated their rival, the University of Mississippi 64-54 in a packed-out Humphrey Coliseum this past Saturday.
MSU’s first victory in conference play came against the Ole Miss Rebels. After dropping consecutive games to the University of Alabama and the University of Tennessee, the Bulldogs picked up a big win at home. Bulldogs head coach Chris Jans discussed his team’s comeback performance.
“We obviously had a great response,” Jans said about going down seven in the second half. “The air was out of the building there for a second, and fortunately. we made some plays and stuck together, and before you knew it, we were up six or seven.”
In the first half, MSU worked their way to a three-point lead heading into the break. The Bulldogs struggled to shoot the ball, managing just a 10-32 effort from the field in the first half. However, their stellar defense was good enough to get them a lead.
The Bulldogs came out slow in the second half, and Ole Miss snagged momentum leading by as much as seven. However, MSU was able to get on a run and reclaim the lead. More importantly, they got their fans back into the game and made the game even tougher on Ole Miss.
Tolu Smith’s performance once again played a huge role. In the second half, Smith reached the 1,000 career points milestone as the Bulldogs looked to put the Rebels away. However, Will McNair Jr.’s impressive night is not to be overlooked. McNair did most of his work in the second half, scoring seven points and playing great defense.
“It felt good (that) my team was trusting me with the ball,” McNair said. “Defense. We had to make some stops to motivate our offense.”
McNair led the team in points for the game with 13, just one more than Smith. Smith continued his strong season against Ole Miss. Despite getting into foul trouble, Smith made a positive impact on the game.
Postgame, Smith said he was happy to reach the 1,000-point milestone but was just happy to get back in the win column.
Coach Jans’ squad picked up their first SEC win and will hit the road Wednesday to play the University of Georgia in a tough conference test.
