Mississippi State ended its season on a low note Thursday, falling 71-58 to the University of Washington in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score.
Husky junior Quincy Pondexter scored a career high 23 points to lead all scorers in the game, a tightly-officiated physical battle that saw more than 40 personal fouls.
Mississippi State started out on a good note, opening the scoring on a three-pointer by junior Barry Stewart and eventually holding a 10-6 lead, but from that point on not much went right for the Bulldogs.
With the game tied at 12 with just more than 10 minutes left in the first half, Pondexter took over the game by hitting two straight layups and giving UW a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
Between those two layups, MSU junior defensive stalwart Jarvis Varnado picked up his second foul, sentencing him to the bench for the rest of the half.
UW standout Jon Brockman picked up a second foul soon after, leaving both teams without the post presence both rely so heavily on.
Pondexter and the Huskies took full advantage, having their way in the lane now clear of big men. Offensively, the Bulldogs helped the Huskies’ cause by going 4 minutes, 58 seconds without a field goal in the pivotal stretch and allowing UW to build an 11-point lead by halftime.
Brockman said he loved watching his teammates get on a roll from the bench.
“I was thinking, ‘I’ve got a pretty sweet seat to sit and watch our team go to work’,” he said. “I was just really proud of our guys they way they came out when we got in a little foul trouble and that didn’t factor in at all.”
Pondexter said Varnado’s absence was very evident, but he hardly noticed that Brockman wasn’t in the game.
“[Brockman] is one of the great scorers on our team,” he said. “I just wanted to pick it up for our team in a time of need.”
That’s exactly what Poindexter did, scoring 11 of his 15 first-half points while Varnado was on the bench.
Brockman said Varnado’s foul trouble was part of the game plan for the Huskies, who hoped to avoid the two-time reigning SEC defensive player of the year’s shot-blocking prowess.
“We wanted to go right at him,” Brockman said. “He’s an unbelievable shot blocker. If you give him any room, he’s going to throw it all the way back to half court.”
Varnado finished the game with 5 blocks, just more than his per-game average on the season.
MSU senior Brian Johnson, suiting up for the final time in Maroon and White, earned 6 rebounds, five points and a block in Varnado’s stead. Pondexter said Johnson and State’s other forwards simply couldn’t match what Varnado brings to the table.
“I think their big guys were still doing a good job of contesting, just not the defensive prowess of Varnado,” Pondexter said. “He’s a great defender and he does alter a lot of shots.”
After being outscored by 11 in half No. 1, the Bulldogs fared little better in the second half. The Huskies opened the second frame with six straight points, expanding the lead to 17 and quelling any hope MSU might have had of a comeback.
“The game changed right there on us,” said MSU head coach Rick Stansbury. “You dig yourself a hole like that, it’s pretty tough to get out of against a really physical team like Washington.
After playing an exhausting four games in four days to earn its way into the tournament, MSU head coach Rick Stansbury said the energy just wasn’t there for his team.
“I didn’t think it was there from the tipoff,” he said. “Not one time except maybe in that second half defensively about two or three trips we really got into somebody guarding them, but that didn’t last long. We weren’t as quick as we normally are.”
Stansbury said while the loss hurts, the feeling is great compared to the feeling of not making the tournament. He said his team will use this early exit as motivation in the offseason.
“We’ll get better from it. We’ll learn from it,” he said. “Like I told our guys, take this feeling right now, carry it from March to October. That’s when games are won.”
Stansbury said he looks forward to next year, when he returns five starters and all but one key contributor.
“When you look on paper compared to last year, what we had coming back is absolutely a lot of unknowns,” he said. “This next season there’s not a lot of unknowns.