Saturday’s game between the 16th-ranked Bulldogs of MSU and the 13th-ranked Gators of Florida was one of the biggest SEC games of the year, and it was certainly the biggest conference matchup of the weekend.
In a somewhat surprising move, though, it was a rather uneventful game. Hype aside, the game played out exactly as the odds makers in Las Vegas thought it would. Florida, a deep and talented team, used its home-court advantage and inability to miss a shot from behind the arc (they did miss a few threes, but it did not seem that way) to escape with a 69-57 win over the Bulldogs.
The game did not really tell us anything new about either team, but it did reinforce what was currently known: Florida is a legitimately good team, and they are extremely hard to beat on their home court. Florida has now won 17 consecutive games at home. It also drove home something many MSU fans have been trying to overlook all season: this year’s Bulldogs squad has no depth. None.
Coming into the season, the Bulldogs were expected to have talented freshman guards Deville Smith and David Gardner to provide depth and play-making ability off the bench. In the post, Wendell Lewis was slated to back up center Renardo Sidney, and Kristers Zeidaks, a sophomore forward from Latvia, was expected to back up star power forward Arnett Moultrie. And this is not even taking Shaun Smith into consideration. Smith, a back-up guard/forward, has yet to be healthy enough to play meaningful minutes during his career at MSU. Well, things did not turn out exactly as MSU coaches would have liked. Gardner left the team last semester in a somewhat controversial manner, and Deville Smith is currently in Jackson battling health problems. As far as Zeidaks is concerned, he is yet another victim of the NCAA. It was determined he played on a professional team in Europe, and he is suspended from this season and part of next season as well.
As a result of the aforementioned transfers, suspensions and health problems/injuries, MSU coaches now only have two players they can depend on to bring off the bench: sophomore guard Jalen Steele and Lewis. This has resulted in MSU starters Rodney Hood, Dee Bost and Arnett Moultrie ranking first, second and third in the SEC in minutes played. As expected, it begins to wear on them, eventually.
Saturday’s game was the first game this season in which MSU’s lack of depth appeared to really do them in. Florida, a perimeter-oriented team that prefers to play an up-tempo style of ball, was able to press MSU after they made baskets. As was the case at Arkansas, the Bulldogs did not handle the press as well as they will need to do down the stretch, and it eventually seemed to wear the Bulldogs down. Florida also forced the Bulldogs to expend a tremendous amount of energy on offense due to their ability to spread the floor and force MSU to defend the entire court.
However, all is not lost. The Bulldogs were expected by most to lose at Florida and losing to a top-15 team on their home court is nothing to be ashamed of. State played hard, and they played well on defense. The Bulldogs simply struggled to score against a tenacious Florida squad, and they wore down as the game went on. MSU’s schedule is highly favorable in the coming weeks with upcoming games against Auburn, Ole Miss, Georgia, LSU and Auburn. MSU should be favored in all of these games, and if the Bulldogs take care of business against the teams it should beat, the team will be 22-5 heading into the monumental showdown against Kentucky at the Hump.