COLUMN: Bulldogs would not be denied against Tigers in vital tournament win

NASHVILLE – Frustration was pretty prevalent from all those with maroon and white interests on Thursday afternoon.

Mississippi State has been one win away from clinching an NCAA Tournament berth for a couple of weeks at this point with narrow losses to Kentucky and South Carolina at home leaving fans to wonder “what if”.

With a lackadaisical start to Thursday’s SEC Tournament matchup against LSU, it appeared the team was heading towards the possibility of not making the tournament altogether.

Whatever was said by Chris Jans at halftime worked. State came out red hot and played with a sense of urgency that has been missing for a few of the first half matchups in recent weeks and MSU went from 22 points and a seven-point deficit at the half to scoring 48 in the second frame and beating the Tigers 70-60.

“There are teams out here that haven’t gotten to win a game. Our mindset is there is more on the table for us and we want to win as many games as we can,” Cameron Matthews said. “Personally I think we can beat any team in the SEC. We’re going to go back and look at the film when we played (Tennessee) and try to simulate the things we did to beat them.”

We had a chance to talk to several of the players in the locker room after the game and the sentiment was all the same about the halftime adjustments. Strangely, it wasn’t the offense that needed priming, it was the defensive side of the ball.

How does a team that only gave up 29 points on defense in the first half and turned the Tigers over 12 need improving? Matthews and Dashawn Davis said more intensity on that end was going to push them on offense.

Well, they were right. MSU was outrebounded 23-13 at the break and they turned that on its head and finished dead even with the Tigers at 36-36. Tolu Smith, though he struggled all game offensively with eight points on 2-of-9 shooting, had 12 second-half rebounds. DJ Jeffries finished the game with 12 of his own.

Davis was a key player in the game with 12 points and four steals. Josh Hubbard saw his own defensive work lead to more production on offense as he made 5 of his last 7 shots after starting 1-for-9.

Bottom line is that MSU finally did what it had to do. They didn’t allow a heartbreaking Kentucky loss to beat them for a sixth time and they almost assuredly have gotten themselves into the NCAA Tournament for the second time in as many tries under Jans.

“It feels good, but we know we have more to accomplish. We’ve beaten everybody on this side of the bracket,” Davis said. “We have to play hard, play aggressive and play Bulldog basketball and we should be fine.”

The monkey is off of the proverbial Bulldog back heading into Friday’s matchup with the SEC Champion and this State team should be able to play freely against the SEC champions of UT.

Confidence is not lacking with this group. Matthews firmly stated the team believes they can win any game against the rest of the SEC and they’ve proven to be successful at neutral sites this year as well.

The Bulldogs head into Friday with a win already over the Volunteers and a 7-0 record in neutral site games. Jans had a familiar feeling about his team coming into Thursday as he did a season ago when they had to beat Florida to get in the NCAA tournament, but this team carries even more confidence into game two.

“It’s so much déjà vu coming down here. I haven’t talked a ton about it, but it’s a similar feeling,” Jans said. “I have a lot of confidence because so many guys were on the team last year and took care of business in the first game. Certainly, we didn’t play well against Alabama, but I have a lot of confidence in this group. Every game that we’ve played, I believe in my core that we’re going to win the game. We haven’t, but my belief system in them hasn’t changed.”