MSU plays Tennessee, hopes to avoid third-straight loss
It’s been a season unlike any other in college basketball as teams have handled the unknown on a week-toweek basis.
Mississippi State has seen its ups and downs this year on the court with a 9-7 record and 4-4 Southeastern Conference mark. The Bulldogs have big wins over Missouri and Florida and bad losses like Texas A&M and Ole Miss that have fans wondering exactly what to expect from this team.
That’s not unusual to what is going on for many teams around college basketball, however. Take, for instance, MSU’S Tuesday night opponent in Tennessee. The Volunteers had their first four games in the season canceled due to COVID-19 issues within the program and that included what was going to be a big matchup with No. 1 Gonzaga. When they got to hit the court, they were off and running with 7-0 start that included a 20-point win over a top 15 Missouri team.
Tennessee started the season 10-1 but have since lost consecutive games to Florida and Missouri and have also had fans questioning just exactly where this team sits in the pecking order.
“It’s been a little more up and down for everybody when you look across the league in terms of some of the scores,” MSU head coach Ben Howland said. “People have been really good and will have a really bad game and come back and have another good game and I can’t explain why. We’ve been really lucky as a conference in that only six games have been missed due to COVID. You credit the league for the testing procedures and how they’ve handled it as well as any conference.”
The Vols (10-3, 4-3 SEC) still have al the makings of a top 10 team in Howland’s eyes. There’s balance up and down the lineup for them as John Fulkerson leads the way with 11.8 points, Victor Bailey Jr. averages 11.6 points and Jaden Springer has 10 points a game.
It’s a group that has been good every year under head coach Rick Barnes and will be a major test for the Bulldogs as they enter tonight’s 6 p.m. tip in Knoxville on SEC Network.
“I’ve watched them all year and they’re really impressive,” Howland said of Tennessee. “They have a lot of depth. Fulkerson and (Yves) Pons up front are veteran guys and really good players. They’re really talented. They’re coming off of two losses so they’re going to bring their very best
effort (Tuesday) night.”
Like the Vols, the Bulldogs are trying to find a way to get back on an upward trend. State was playing some good basketball in the first four games of conference play and had a three-game home stand with a chance to start
the year 6-1 in conference.
Instead, MSU won against Florida and had two bad losses to the Aggies and Rebels that set it back. A nice performance on the road against Alabama was still a loss, albeit by eight points, and the Bulldogs are on the verge of three-straight losses.
Howland did like the way his team came back from the Ole Miss game and gave effort
in Tuscaloosa.
“We had our poorest game and effort against Ole Miss so it was a bounce back game no matter who we’re playing and it just happened to be against Alabama, who is the best team in our league,” Howland said. “I thought we played hard and really competed against a good team. I thought our effort was really good and practices leading
up to it was very spirited and high level.”
MSU enters tonight’s game being led in scoring by the sophomore trio of D.J. Stewart Jr. with 18 points, Iverson Molinar with 17.5 points and Tolu Smith with 13.2 points and 8.8 rebounds. State has gone how those three players have gone and they’ll be counted on heavily as the season continues to progress.
At the end of the day, it’s a team full of inexperience and fresh faces. Only one truly experience player returns this year with senior Abdul Ado and his 5.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.1 blocks a game. Everyone else is still trying to find themselves as Howland tries to get the team on track to bigger things.
“We’re incredibly young,” Howland said. “Abdul and
D.J. were starters last year and Iverson played about 12 minutes a game. After that, nobody on this year’s team played a year ago. We have freshmen learning on the job with both Deivon Smith and Cameron Matthews getting a lot of minutes and I think they’ve grown a lot already this season. We’ve got to get more rest for our guys so they can be more productive in the game.”