Bulldogs win on senior night

It was a game filled with emotion from senior night festivities, but the Mississippi State Bulldogs avoided potential distraction and stacked another win to their resume.

MSU held off the South Carolina Gamecocks in a 74-68 victory in the last regular season home game on Tuesday night.

The Gamecocks have been a team that has gotten much better than the last time the Bulldogs played them on January 31 when they routed South Carolina 66-51 in Columbia, S.C.

When the game began, the Gamecocks came out the gate and had early offensive success, but it was a late run by MSU down the stretch to give them an eight-point halftime lead.

The second half started much like the first with South Carolina making big shots, but much like how the first half ended, the Bulldogs closed out the game with a late run and all the momentum inside Humphrey Coliseum as they pulled out the win.

MSU senior Tolu Smith said that he wasn't worried about the senior night atmosphere and that he was just focused on doing his job on Tuesday night. It was after the win when the emotion started to hit.

“I wasn't too worried about the senior night before the game because I knew how impactful this game was to our resume, but then it started to hit me,” Smith said. “It's just a surreal feeling to play my last game in the Hump.”

Smith recorded 16 points in his Humphrey Coliseum finale. Guard Shakeel Moore led the Bulldogs with 20 points, and senior D.J. Jeffries led in rebounds with six.

MSU head coach Chris Jans has given much of credit to the home crowd throughout the season. From seeing the sellout crowds and electric fans, the first-year coach spoke on how important that support is the type of program he's working to build in Starkville.

“I can't speak for them, but hopefully they like how we play,” Jans said. “They like the fact that our kids get after it and compete. We're not perfect, but what I

want is for people to love the competitiveness of our team and try to be a firstclass program all the way around. I don't know why they've increased or why they keep coming back, but we certainly appreciate it. It's really helped us all year long and it helped us tonight. You could feel them and our guy feed off it.”

The Bulldogs (20-10, 8-9) will look to close the regular season with another win on Saturday when they face the Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville, Tennessee.