STARKVILLE — With the exception of one game against the University of Mississippi, it was the same formula for the Mississippi State University men’s basketball team but a different result Saturday.
MSU, which had walked the tight rope in four straight Southeastern Conference home wins by five points or less, finally had its dangerous habit of allowing inferior opponents hang around catch up with it against a University of Georgia team that entered the game 11th in the 12-team league.
“Give them credit too (because they made a lot of shots),” MSU senior point guard Dee Bost said. “This happens to a lot of teams, and I guess it happened to us tonight.”
Bost said in the preseason that this MSU team was different, while junior power forward Arnett Moultrie said MSU played with toughness and “a chip on their shoulder.”
None of that talk was evident against a more motivated, more fundamentally sound and better rested Georgia team that was coming off a 22-point victory against the University of Arkansas on Wednesday. Bost and Moultrie were dejected after a 70-68 overtime home loss and provided only short answers that expressed more shock than disappointment.
“No explanation,” Moultrie said. “I wasn’t feeling any different (than any other game this season).”
Moultrie, who leads the SEC in rebounding at 11 per game, had just six touches off the glass (his second lowest output of the 2011-12 season) against an inexperienced and undersized front line.
“I am not going to make any excuses (because) Arnett has been good all year, (but) he just did not have it today,” MSU coach Rick Stansbury said. “His game is about energy and athleticism. That’s a challenge we knew we would have to face.”
Junior forward Renardo Sidney had his first double-double of the season, but he took an ill-advised jump shot from 15 feet with 48 seconds left in overtime and MSU down two.
Georgia coach Mark Fox was elated Sidney, a 290-pound center took that look against a zone after being unable to stop him from getting 10 points and 12 rebounds near the low block.
“I’m not sure you can (match up with his size),” Fox said. “We don’t have a guy on our team that could stop him. Every time he caught it deep all he did was turn and lay it in. We couldn’t stop it.”
Georgia guard Gerald Robinson Jr. hit two free throws on the other end to make a MSU comeback nearly impossible.
Nothing went according to plan as the SEC’s worst offensive rebounding team had 18 offensive rebounds against the league’s best defensive rebounding team.
Stansbury, who was 7-1 in the past three seasons with a team on fewer days rest, put the loss on the fact his team didn’t have the energy and toughness to transition to another highly-charged atmosphere.
“We played Thursday night and we left everything physically and emotionally on the court,” Stansbury said. “We had an early game today and we just were not able to turn it around.”
Bost, who was less than 36 hours off a 13-assist performance in a victory against Ole Miss at Humphrey Coliseum, admitted MSU may have already marked Saturday’s game with Georgia as a win after recognizing the Bulldogs had lost seven of their first nine conference games and had an Ratings Percentage Index near 150.
“That’s not an excuse or anything,” Bost said. “We just didn’t bring it, and this is what we get tonight.”
The loss puts MSU in a precarious situation considering it will play two road games this week and that the team has a home date remaining against the No. 1 University of Kentucky.
“Just like we do every loss, we have to learn from it and move forward,” Moultrie said. “I don’t know (what I’ve learned). I’ll have to watch some film on it.”
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