Late layup seals Gators’ loss at Mississippi State
STARKVILLE, Miss. — In need of a key bucket, No. 24 Mississippi State went to an old reliable — Quinndary Weatherspoon in crunch time. Weatherspoon converted a threepoint play with 3.4 seconds left to lift the Bulldogs over Florida 71-68 on Tuesday night.
It was the sixth time in his career that Weatherspoon sank the winning shot. He drove the lane and was fouled by Kevarrius Hayes while dropping in the winning layup. Weatherspoon finished with nine points.
“We were supposed to get the ball in, and then me and Lamar [Peters] go back and forth with it,” Weatherspoon said. “Lamar broke off the play and got out of the way, and that left me an open lane. I thought it went good, and it gets our confidence back to get back on the right track.”
Peters scored all 16 of his points in the first half and Tyson Carter added 12 for Mississippi State (13-3, 1-2 SEC).
“That was obviously a huge win over a very good team that is very wellcoached,” Mississippi State coach Ben Howland said. “I was very proud of our guys, and I thought we kept our composure so much better in this game than we did last Saturday [against Ole Miss]. And Q [Weatherspoon] just seems to have that rare, rare ability to make that play.”
KeVaughn Allen had 17 points for Florida (9-7, 1-3), and Andrew Nembhard had 13 points. Noah Locke had 12 points for the Gators, who had won eight straight against Mississippi State.
Mississippi State shot 53.1 percent from the floor and made 10 of 17 beyond the arc. Florida shot 42.4 percent from the field and made just 10 of 31 shots from deep.
“Our tempo press was effective for 39 and a half minutes,” Florida coach Mike White said. “Q made a good play, and we didn’t keep him in front. We rotated a little bit late and he finished and made a big play.”
The Bulldogs led 36-34 at halftime and the teams played close throughout the second half. Allen’s 3-pointer with 2:55 remaining put the Gators ahead 66-61, but Aric Holman answered with a 3 on the next possession, and Weatherspoon tied it at 66 with a layup with 1:27 left.
Holman and Locke exchanged baskets in the final 24 seconds before Weatherspoon won it with his three-point play.
Kentucky rolls
Ashton Hagans silenced a hostile crowd by scoring a season-high 23 points, leading No. 12 Kentucky to a 69-49 victory over Georgia on Tuesday night.
The Wildcats (13-3, 3-1 SEC) pulled away in the second half for their third straight victory.
Hagans, a freshman who initially committed to Georgia out of high school but wound up signing with Kentucky, was booed by the sellout crowd at Stegeman Coliseum each time he touched the ball.
It sure didn’t seem to bother him.
The point guard reached double figures for the fifth game in a row, eclipsing the 18 points he scored a week ago against Texas A&M. But the youngster’s contribution went much deeper on the stat sheet — he also had five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Hagans’ performance was especially galling for a Georgia team that could’ve had him running the offense. The Bulldogs’ point guard, senior Turtle Jackson, managed only two points on 1-of-8 shooting.
Georgia (9-7, 1-3) led by five in the opening minutes before going to the locker room down 35-31.
Hagans took control after halftime. He knocked down a 3-pointer just ahead of the shot-clock buzzer, darted into the lane to lay one in, and scored off a steal by Tyler Herro to suddenly push the lead into double figures, 42-31.
Kentucky steadily pulled away from there.
In the closing minutes, as most of the red-clad fans headed for the exits, a sizeable contingent of Wildcat fans chanted, “Go Big Blue!”
Nicolas Claxton led Georgia with 12 points. The Bulldogs shot only 17 of 56 from the field.