A year ago, the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Mississippi State Bulldogs struggled on the road, both ripping off wins at Louisiana State University to finish 1-7 in SEC road play. This season it seems that MSU is still struggling, as the Tide won at Georgia last Wednesday night. The road woes continued for the Bulldogs, as State (15-4, 2-3) traveled to Tuscaloosa, on Saturday, to do battle with the No. 16 ranked Crimson Tide.
In a physical and turnover-plagued game, that saw a total of 45 fouls and four technical fouls, plus 34 turnovers, Alabama (16-3, 4-1) handed the Bulldogs their third, SEC road defeat of the season, 85-73. This win lengthened Alabama’s home game winning streak to 14 games.
“We got beat by a very good basketball team. It was a hard-fought game. On the road it’s so difficult. I thought we played hard, but we didn’t always play smart,” State head coach Rick Stansbury said.
Alabama jumped out to an early 9-0 lead, but the Bulldogs were not to be outdone. State came back to cut the lead to 11-10. Derrick Zimmerman and Michael Gholar got the Bulldogs their first four points with dunks, as Marckell Patterson and Michal Ignerski joined suite with back-to-back three-pointers.
Behind the big men inside, Bama pushed the lead back out to 17-12, but again State would come back to within one (17-16), but this was as close as the Bulldogs would come to defeating Alabama. The Tide took a seven-point lead in at the half at 31-24.
Bama saw it’s first double-digit lead of the game (37-26) with a layup by, former Jackson Murrah standout, Mo Williams with 17:42 remaining in the game. The Bulldogs kept chipping away at the lead but could never overcome the Tide. Alabama took over, following two technical fouls, pushing their lead out to 12 points.
“Sometimes you get baskets easy, but in a 40-minute game you know you are not going to get them that easy,” Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried stated.
Foul trouble and an up tempo game got the Tide crowd involved and Bama never lost stride taking their largest lead of 15 points with 49 seconds remaining in the game.
“Our crowd was great. We have got great fans; they are excited about our team,” Gottfried said. “They helped us win.”
The Alabama, junior, forward duo of Rod Grizzard and Erwin Dudley was an overwhelming force, as they led the Tide in scoring. Grizzard added 22 points, 18 of which in the second half.
“Grizzard just took the game over and we couldn’t come back,” Patterson said. Dudley led the scoring with 24 points and a team high 10 rebounds.
“He’s an exceptionally good ball player, no question about it,” Stansbury said.
The Tide shot a blistering 59 percent in the second half on their way to outrebounding State 36-29, making them only the third team (Cincinnati and Arkansas-Little Rock) to have that advantage over the Bulldogs this season.
“If we keep them off the boards and limit them to one shot, then they would have only shot 40 percent,” Patterson stated.
Mario Austin paced the Bulldogs in the game, leading in both scoring and rebounds. Austin had 19 points and seven boards. Zimmerman and Patterson both added 12 points
respectively. Patterson became the 24th player in Mississippi State basketball history to score 1,000 career points.
State returns to action tomorrow as the Bulldogs prepare to welcome Ronald Dupree and Louisiana State University Tigers to the friendly confines of Humphrey Coliseum.
The Dogs will look to increase their home winning streak to 14 regular season games. The last time the Dogs lost to an SEC opponent at “The Hump” was last year in an 82-73 loss to LSU. The Bulldogs have won 14 of the last 15 games at home with the last loss being to Tulsa in the National Invitational Tournament quarterfinals.
MSU is 18-8 in SEC home games in the Stansbury era. The tipoff for the LSU (12-6, 2-2) battle is 4 p.m. and will be televised by Fox Sports Net South.
After LSU, State will go on the road to take on the Auburn Tigers, followed by a tough game in Gainesville against the Florida Gators. The Dogs will not return home until Feb. 6 when they take on the road-tested Georgia Bulldogs.
Alabama will make their return trip to Starkville on Feb. 9, where the Tide has not won since 1998. Rematches with Arkansas, Auburn, and in-state rival Mississippi will close out the Bulldogs home schedule for 2002.
The Bulldogs will travel to Vanderbilt, LSU, and South Carolina before they go to Atlanta for the 2002 SEC Tournament.