In its last Wednesday night road game, No. 21 Mississippi State (13-4, 3-3 Southeastern Conference) squandered its largest lead under head coach Rick Stansbury and allowed an uncontested layup to tie the game. This time, University of Mississippi (12-5, 3-3 SEC) guard Emmanuel Wade went to the basket, made the shot, drew the foul and sank the free throw for a one-point Rebel lead with 6.6 seconds remaining.
Just when all 9,088 in Tad Smith Coliseum thought that the Rebels, who held the lead for only 3:50 out of 40 minutes, were going to win their 10th straight home game against ranked opponents, MSU senior Derrick Zimmerman knew better.
“From the Alabama game, we said that we wouldn’t ever let that happen again,” Zimmerman said. “I told coach that I wanted the ball and that I wanted to make a play for the team.”
Zimmerman caught the ball on a curl route and shifted on the fly to blow past David Sanders for a left-handed layup in 4.9 seconds. A Rebel half-court prayer fell well short and off target to end the game, prompting UM fans in the student section to heave cups, ice, plastic Coke bottles and whiskey bottles at the celebrating Bulldogs. UM students then turned to shout at Rick’s Rowdies members. Tempers flared when a UM student slapped MSU fan B.G. Overstreet.
“It was a feminine, wimpy slap; not manly at all,” Overstreet said.
“Z is hard to contain when you get him going full speed,” Stansbury (6-3 vs. UM) said. “We curled him off a four-man screen, brought Mario Austin out of the post, and told Z to take it to the hole. There was no second option.”
Entering the battle for the state’s bragging rights, UM ranked first in scoring defense (56.1 ppg) and third in field goal percentage (39.9) in the SEC, while MSU ranked second (61.6 ppg) and first (39.0). The bricks that are usually thrown in the metallic building had scratched the orange paint of the rims at Smith Coliseum.
However, Wednesday night was an exception as MSU shot 53.3 percent and UM shot 50 percent for the game. Junior Mario Austin scored 16 and snagged a game-high eight rebounds to lead the Bulldogs. Sophomore Timmy Bowers scored 15, including a baseline floater that gave the Dawgs’ a 56-54 lead, and Zimmerman scored 12 with six assists.
“One thing we tried to do was take good shots and no bad shots,” Bowers said. “We were going to pound the ball into Mario and let him do his thing under the basket and also kick it out to us for open shots.”
The Bulldogs scored 19 in the first eight minutes of the game, but its two mainstays (tenacious defense and relentless rebounding) positioned the Dawgs to be victorious. MSU out-rebounded UM 29-19.
Ontario Harper scored five of that 19, but made an even bigger contribution on the defensive end. When State was not in a 2-3 zone, the sophomore’s assignment was SEC Player of the Week Aaron Harper who finished the game with 11 points.
“I had been struggling the last couple of games and I let my offense affect everything else,” Harper said. “Tonight, I wanted to score if I had chances, or set my teammates up. The zone helped us out tonight, but I’d rather play man so I can talk a little noise.”
Justin Reed led the Rebels in scoring with 17, while Sanders pitched in 14.
“I thought the game was decided in the trenches, but I thought that we were in control of the game for 40 minutes.” Stansbury said. “I thought that [holding UM to three offensive rebounds] was a huge key to the game.”
“Taking Harper’s stats out of 3-pointers, we thought that the rest of the team shot about 26%, meaning three out of four would be coming off the rim. So we worked hard on those because the team that rebounded those would be the winner.”
“You have to rebound out of a zone,” Bowers added. “Rebounding is a big part of us. We worked on it the last couple of days in practice: rebounding drill after rebounding drill-we basically got tired of it.”
“Branden Vincent gave us the best 18 minutes of the year,” Stansbury said. “It won’t show up in the box score, but he did a great job of reading and shifting in the zone defense.”
“The zone slows ball movement, stops dribble penetration, and stops easy baskets on the block. Our kids executed the zone defense as well as anyone can.”
State dominated the points in the paint 34 to 20. While UM made eight 3’s, they also missed 14. MSU went 7-14 from the charity stripe as UM went 3-3.
The seven missed free throws and allowing nine of UM’s 27 second half points off of inbounds plays should be of concern for the Bulldogs as they prepare to go visit the ‘other Bulldogs’ of the No. 17 University of Georgia (12-5, 4-2 SEC).
UGA was the only visiting team to outwork MSU and leave Humphrey Coliseum victoriously in last season’s campaign. MSU would love to return the favor and become the first this season to leave Stegeman Coliseum with a win. The 6 p.m.CST tip-off will be televised on SEC-TV on FoxSports.