Mississippi State has had a reputation all year as a team which “lives and dies by the three.” Against Alabama on Saturday, the Bulldogs died by the three.
MSU only made two of their 18 three-point attempts against the Crimson Tide, and lost the game by a final score of 62-57.
Head coach Rick Stansbury looked at the box score from Sautrday’s game and was surprised his team was still in the game at the end.
“You go on the road and shoot 2-of-18 from the 3-point line, Jarvis (Varnado) was 4-for-14, Dee’s 3-for-13, (Barry) Stewart is 3-for-10 and still it’s a one-point game with 30 seconds to go,” Stansbury said. “Offensively, we left way too many plays on the court.”
After an abysmal first half which saw the Bulldogs go 0-11 from beyond the arc, State was still only down by one, 27-26. With 11:34 left, MSU was down 46-34, but they went on a 14-0 run to take a 48-46 lead after a Stewart three-pointer with 7:32 left.
The lead only lasted for 18 seconds, and the Bulldogs did not reclaim the lead the rest of the game. Stansbury said his team should have finished off the Crimson Tide after the run.
“We went on a 14-0 run,” Stansbury said. “Right there is where you’ve got to finish a team. I think we had three trips in a row where we had opportunities to finish some things and we don’t finish it in the half-court offense.”
The Bulldogs’ best chance to take the lead came with 42 seconds left and the Bulldogs down 56-55. Dee Bost, who scored 10 points in the game, drove to the basket and went up for a layup, but the shot was blocked by Alabama forward JaMychal Green. After the game, Bost said there was contact on the play, and he expected a foul to be called.
“It didn’t get blocked,” Bost said. “Dude smacked my arm, and the ref looked directly at me and was like ‘Nah, no foul.'”
The difference makers for Alabama were Green and senior guard Mikhail Torrance, as the duo combined for 38 of Alabama’s 62 points. First-year Alabama head coach Anthony Grant said Torrance did more for his team than just score.
“I thought he affected the game in a lot of different ways with our press, getting up and putting pressure on the ball, forcing them to use a couple of timeouts on the defensive end and just really getting in there rebounding,” Grant said.
The Bulldogs were led offensively by Stewart’s 13 points, and Varnado had nine points, eight rebounds and four blocks before fouling out with six seconds left in the game. The last time Varnado fouled out of a game was last year’s double overtime contest against Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
The loss puts MSU at 3-1 in the SEC, and after spending one week in the Associated Press Top 25, MSU was pushed out of the rankings.
Varnado, who moved into second place on the all-time NCAA blocks list Saturday with 494, said the team will improve after seeing their mistakes.
“We’ll take this loss and just learn from it,” Varnado said. “Move on to the next one.”