Mississippi State's woes continue Friday in 80-78 loss to New Mexico

Mississippi State’s woes continued on Friday night in the Hall of Fame Classic as the Bulldogs dropped an 80-78 decision to New Mexico in Kansas City, Mo.

Josh Hubbard led the Bulldogs (2-3) with a season-high 29 points while Jayden Epps added a season-best 21 points. But it wasn’t enough as Mississippi State dropped its second consecutive game.

“I am sure it will be a long travel home,” head coach Chris Jans said afterwards. “There will be a lot of film watching on the bus and on the plane. Tomorrow and as always, we are constantly trying to morph our schemes to benefit our players better. We got to find more scoring. Epps and Hubbard are carrying a lot of water right now.”

Brandon Walker did provide a spark of the bench with eight points and three rebounds in 16 minutes of action.

Tomislav Buljan paced New Mexico (4-2) with 19 points and a career-high 21 rebounds while Uriah Tenette and Deyton Albury each had 13 points for the Lobos. Antonio Chol also finished in double digits for New Mexico with 12 points.

For the game, State shot 46% from the floor and State made 9 of 29 from 3 point territory. The Bulldogs were just 7 of 13 at the charity stripe and had seven turnovers.

The Lobos shot 41% from the field and made 9 of 27 beyond the 3 point arc. New Mexico was 19 of 25 at the foul line, had 10 turnovers and out-rebounded State, 46-36, including 13 offensive rebounds.

State trailed by one point at halftime and the second half was back and forth most of the way. Down the stretch, Mississippi State used a 6-0 run to grab a 68-65 advantage but New Mexico continued to fight back.

Buljan drained a 3 pointer to give the Lobos a 76-75 lead with 2:06 remaining in regulation. Hubbard would put State on top 77-76 moments later but Albury’s layup with 30 seconds left gave New Mexico the lead for good.

“They got No. 10 (Buljan) really going and he was an issue for us,” Jans noted. “He just controlled the backboards. Lately, when he gets it no matter who it was, we just said we’re going to have to double him. To me, he hit the biggest shot of the game when he hit that 3 in transition. That really changed the game.”

Jans did play Amier Ali and Walker more minutes tonight than previous games. Ali only had two points but grabbed eight rebounds in 16 minutes.

“Again, mixed results,” remarked Jans. “Amier can make shots but couldn’t tonight. I was happy and proud for him, especially in the first half when he had seven of our 20 rebounds. That is progress for him. Brandon scored the ball and that is what he does. Tonight he had some good opportunities and was guarding pretty good, thus the reason he played more minutes.”

Mississippi State opened the game with 3 pointers from Hubbard and Epps for an early 6-2 lead. But an 8-0 run by New Mexico gave the Lobos a 14-8 lead and New Mexico would maintain a lead the rest of the half.

The Lobos led by as many as seven points later in the first half but the Bulldogs closed the half on a 9-3 spurt to trail 40-39 at halftime.

In the opening half, Mississippi State shot 38% from the field and made 7 of 20 beyond the 3 point arc. The Bulldogs were 2 of 4 at the foul line and had just one turnover in the half.

New Mexico shot 36% from the floor in the first half and made 4 of 17 from 3 point range. The Lobos were 12 of 17 at the foul line and had six turnovers in the first half. New Mexico out-rebounded State, 29-20, in the opening half, including 11 offensive boards.

“I thought we played a little more zone tonight with mixed results,” added Jans. “We changed up coverages a couple of times. We were scoring enough but we just have to string together enough stops. If you would told me before the game we would’ve lost the rebounding total the way we did, I would’ve thought you were crazy. But this is two games now where we haven’t done enough on the backboards.”

Up Next

Mississippi State returns to Humphrey Coliseum on Monday as the Bulldogs host New Orleans in a 6:30 p.m. tipoff. New Orleans is 2-2 so far this season and are scheduled to play at Fresno State later on Friday night. The Privateers hold wins over TCU and Tulane and have losses to Pepperdine and LSU.