Against the Georgia Bulldogs Saturday, Phil Turner had almost as many points (15) as he did minutes on the court (16). It was that energy, particularly in the final minutes, which helped Mississippi State beat Georgia 72-69 at The Hump. Turner said his up-tempo style is why Rick Stansbury put him in the game.
“I feel like that’s why I’m on this team, to help the team in any area that I can,” he said. “When I came in I saw that we were down a little bit, and I just tried to bring the team some energy.”
Stansbury seemed to feel the same way, and said Turner certainly made a big difference.
“He got a few steals,” Stansbury said. “He jumped up and made a couple of three-pointers. He got us all going. We needed a burst of energy.”
With just over four minutes left in the game, MSU trailed by 13 points and seemed sure to lose the game. However, the energy of Turner and some stellar defensive plays helped State put together a 21-5 run to finish the game.
With 20 seconds left in the game, Georgia’s Dustin Ware attempted a three-pointer which would have tied the game. Unfortunately for him, the Bulldog guarding him was the nation’s leading shot-blocker – Jarvis Varnado. The 6’9″ center blocked the shot, and he said despite being out of his element near the three-point line, it was actually pretty simple.
“When he went up and shot, my long arms got it,” he said. “It was nothing extraordinary, I just knew the shot clock was going down and he had to shoot it.”
Varnado was the Dawgs’ second-leading scorer, after Dee Bost and Turner, with 14 points, and he also registered 14 rebounds and six blocks, leaving him 46 shorts of the all-time blocked shots record.
As the Bulldogs trailed for the majority of the game, Varnado said many of the players seemed to be tired after having played in a down-to-the-wire game against Arkansas just two days previous.
“Playing Thursday and coming back and playing Saturday is tough,” he said, “But we gotta get used to it, and the guys know how tough it is now. We gotta get our rest.”
The Bulldogs barely squeaked out the win, but MSU is now 3-0 in conference play, and sits on top of the SEC Western Division. Stansbury said he is proud of his team for making the late comeback.
“We were down 13 points with 4:16 to go,” he said, “and at that point most teams are dead in the water.”