A late comeback bid fell short against Vanderbilt on Wednesday night, and Rick Stansbury’s club dropped their third consecutive SEC road game by a final score of 75-72.
The Bulldogs had a chance to send the game to overtime, but a Dee Bost 3-pointer was off the mark in the final seconds.
MSU trailed 38-31 at the end of the first half, and Vanderbilt’s hot shooting had the Commodores ahead 71-57 with four minutes left in the game.
It took a 15-4 MSU run in the final four minutes of play for the Bulldogs to be in a position to force overtime. At one point during that run senior Barry Stewart, Shelbyville, Tenn., native, scored eight consecutive points with a layup and two three’s. Stewart said he wanted to finish the game strong despite the large deficit late in the second half.
“We were determined to finish the game with a purpose,” Stewart said. “We weren’t going to end the game on a losing effort and played with a lot of effort.”?
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, they had already dug too big of a hole in the first 36 minutes of the game to make a comeback in the final four minutes. The shooting was the difference in the game, as the Bulldogs’ struggles from three-point range continued. MSU only made nine of 34 3-point shots and shot an abysmal 35.3 percent from the field.
Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings said the game’s final possession, when Bost attempted a potential game-tying three, was poorly executed by his team.
“We were supposed to foul, but we didn’t,” Stallings said. “It’s one of about 11 things that we didn’t do right. For a team that works on end of game situations every day, it was not a well-coached final possession.”
Stansbury said the Vanderbilt team MSU lost to is one of the strongest he has seen in recent years in Nashville.
“It’s never easy to come into here,” Stansbury said. “There is no question that this is one of the better Vanderbilt basketball teams that I have seen here in a long time.”
Despite the daunting task, senior Jarvis Varnado was one block away from a triple double. The forward had 12 points, 14 rebounds and nine blocks in the game. He is now 27 points away from the all-time NCAA record.
Even though MSU came up short in the final score, Stansbury said the late rally showed him a lot about his team.
“I’m proud of our kids’ effort,” Stansbury said. “As a coach, we don’t ever ask our kids to play perfect – that’s unreasonable. We don’t ask them to make every shot. As a coach, you ask them to make sure you leave everything between those lines.”