STARKVILLE — There’s no such thing as a must-win game in mid-January of a Southeastern Conference basketball season that goes well into March. That doesn’t mean it can’t sometimes seem that way.
Ask Mississippi State coach Chris Jans, whose Bulldogs entered Saturday night’s game with arch-rival Ole Miss having lost two straight games and facing the Rebels, who were a perfect 4-0 in the SEC coming in. In Jans’ press conference afterward, we did.
“Well, I didn’t tell our team it was a must-win game, but internally it certainly felt that way for me. We badly needed to win,” Jans answered after a grueling, 84-81 overtime State victory. Jans’ voice was noticeably raspy from two hours and 45 minutes of nearly constant yelling.
There are at least two more extenuating circumstances of why this one seemed so vitally important. First, State goes back on the road for two more games this week, beginning Tuesday night with No. 6 Tennessee in Knoxville. Nobody wants to take a three-game losing streak to a place like Thompson-Boling Arena. Second, well, this was Ole Miss, the team Mississippi State folks most love to despise.
A raucous, largely partisan, standing room only crowd of 9,444 packed The Hump, yelling maroon murder. Most probably left the arena with raspy voices, too.
State rode that tidal wave of emotion early. On their first possession, the Bulldogs retrieved two offensive rebounds before scoring the game’s first bucket. And that rebounding dominance would be a recurring theme throughout. In an overtime game, eventually decided by three points, the Bulldogs outscored the Rebels 19-6 on second-chance (and third chance) baskets, out-rebounded the Rebels a whopping 51-29, and out-scored Ole Miss in the paint 40-24.
In a game with so many ups and downs and twists and turns, there’s a danger of over-complicating what caused the final result. In this one, there shouldn’t be. The closer the ball got to the basket, the more State dominated play. You look at those rebounding and the in-the-paint numbers and you ask yourself: How the heck was it that close?
It was that close because Ole Miss simply wouldn’t go away. The Rebels got behind 11-0 before they finally scored. They trailed 14-2 early and by as many as 14 in the first half. At the risk of using verbs TV announcers have worn completely out, Chris Beard’s Rebels scratched and clawed their way back into the game and stayed within striking distance throughout. They did so with a suffocating on-ball defense that forced 16 State turnovers. How do you overcome a 40-24 point differential in the paint? Mostly by out-scoring your opponent 14-3 in points off turnovers.
“That’s what Ole Miss does,” Jans said. “They turn you over.”
There is one striking similarity between the two teams. Both guard you as if their mothers’ lives depend on the outcome. Both teams play exceedingly hard.
Although Ole Miss has won 15 of its first 18 games, Beard has fretted often about his team’s rebounding woes. The Rebels had been much better in that regard in their first three SEC games, mainly because 6-foot-9, 240-pound Malik Dia had stepped up his play in January, averaging just over 10 rebounds per game. Against State, Dia got only one offensive rebound, two rebounds total. Compare that to State’s Keyshawn Murphy and Cameron Matthews, both of whom pulled down 11 rebounds.
Beard refused to lay blame on Dia. “It’s a team game,” he said, while allowing, “We do need Dia to play better.”
Instead, Beard pointed to three factors he said led to defeat. First, he said, was State’s fast start and early dominance, which he termed “unacceptable.” Secondly, as Beard put it, “They made more free throws (17 of 28) than we shot (8 of 14).” Beard didn’t blame officiating. “They were more aggressive going to the basket than we were,” he said. And, third, of course, the rebounding. “They were more physical than we were,” Beard correctly said.
In such a grinding, topsy-turvy game, it’s difficult to point out any one play that stood out, especially when the last 90 seconds of overtime took 17 minutes to finish. (In keeping with the officials’ style, I’ll take five minutes to review each sentence of this column upon its completion.)
But if you were going to point out one deciding play, it would be this one. With Ole Miss leading 77-76 late in overtime, the Rebels’ Matthew Murrell appeared about to score a break-away layup to put the Rebels up by three. Instead, RJ Melendez ran him down from behind, leaped and swatted the ball against the backboard for a clean block. State quickly pushed the ball the other way and Matthews spotted Riley Kugel in the left corner for a wide open three-ball, which Kugel, the game’s leading scorer with 21 points, swished.
Instead of being down by 3, the Bulldogs were suddenly up by two. They finished.
Important to remember: This was just Round 5 of an 18-round SEC schedule for both teams. Many peaks, valleys and potholes will play out over the next six weeks. What we know is this: Both State and Ole Miss are two really competent teams that play in the nation’s most competitive basketball league.
Both have the potential to play beyond the regular season and the SEC Tournament. And a reminder: These two teams go at it again Feb. 15, the day after Valentine’s Day, at Oxford. Again, there will be no love lost.
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