Skip to main content
Mississippi State
Join Now

Hubbard, Achor lead Mississippi State to road rout at Ole Miss

Paul Jones Mississippi State Bulldogsby: Paul Jones02/15/26PaulJonesOn3

Despite the struggles this year, Mississippi State has played its best ball in SEC road games this season. That trend continued Saturday as the Bulldogs dominated Ole Miss, 90-78, in Oxford.

Mississippi State has won just one home SEC game this year but improved to 3-3 in SEC road games. Overall, Mississippi State moved to 12-13 overall and 4-8 in the SEC. Ole Miss dropped its seventh straight game and fell to 11-4 and 3-9.

Head coach Chris Jans is now 6-2 against Ole Miss and has won three of four games held in Oxford.

“They were ready to go,” head coach Chris Jans said afterwards. “You watch us play and I know it is my responsibility and it is still frustrating to me, but I thought they played a little harder today. I thought they guarded the ball with a little more resistance today. They flew around a little bit more, especially the first 3o minutes of the game. I felt our guys had a different edge to them for whatever reason.”

Josh Hubbard led the way for State with 32 points and six assists, his second straight game of reaching the 30-point mark and his fifth game of the season scoring 30 or more points. Hubbard 12 12 of 16 from the field and also now owns the Mississippi State career mark of 284 career 3 pointers made.

Achor Achor added a season-best 18 points for the Bulldogs, including 11 in the first half, while Jayden Epps had 12. Shawn Jones also had eight rebounds for State along with three assists.

Malik Dia had a career-best 32 points to lead Ole Miss while AJ Storr had 21 for the Rebels.

“Josh was ultra-efficient, maybe the most efficient game he’s had since he became a Bulldog,” added Jans. “So happy for him, just elated for him. He’s never had a game like this against Ole Miss. He is from the ‘Sip’ (Mississippi) so it is important, maybe a little more important. He doesn’t really get wrapped up in that and treats this game like any other game. I know he has to feel good coming up here tonight and playing the way he did.”

Overall, State shot 58% from the field and made 11 of 24 from 3 point range. The Bulldogs were 13 of 22 at the foul line, had nine turnovers and outrebounded Ole Miss, 38-35. Ole Miss shot 42% from the floor and made 8 of 26 at the charity stripe. The Rebels made 16 of 21 free throw attempts and had six turnovers.

Mississippi State led from start to finish in the first half thanks to Achor scoring State’s first 11 points of the game. The Bulldogs also got 16 from Hubbard in the first half and held a comfortable 47-28 lead at halftime.

State shot 62.1% in the opening half and also made 5 of 11 beyond the 3 point arc. The Bulldogs held Ole Miss to just 31% shooting in the first half and out-rebounded the Rebels, 23-14, along with having 11 first-half assists.

“After the Tennessee debacle of our ball-screen defense, it was something we addressed and worked on and showed film on and talked about,” Jans noted. “I liked the response that they had specifically to that and guarding the ball.

“We even got to the point where we were adjusting in the game because they started to get behind us and dunking the ball, and no coach likes that. So we started switching. With JMar (Jamarion Davis-Fleming) and having the luxury of someone that can play ball screens in different ways is a big advantage and we were able to use that that. It settled down on the defensive end.”

Up Next

Mississippi State returns home Wednesday for an 8 p.m. tipoff against Auburn at Humphrey Coliseum. The game will be televised by ESPN2 for the third straight time. Heading into Saturday night’s road game at Arkansas, Auburn was on a three-game losing streak and the Tigers were 14-10 overall and 5-6 in the SEC going into the Arkansas game.

You may also like