STARKVILLE — Talk about a must-win game.
Everyone associated with the Mississippi State University men’s basketball team seems to understand they don’t deserve a berth in the NCAA tournament if they can’t get a victory tonight in a game versus a last-place team in Southeastern Conference.
MSU (19-10, 6-8 in SEC) travels to South Carolina tonight (7 p.m., SEC Network) trying to break a five-game losing streak that have dropped them from a team ranked in both Top 25 polls team to a program just barely hanging onto the bubble as they embark in the final week of the regular season.
“Things have definitely been down the wrong path lately. We’ve let it get too deep,” MSU junior power forward Arnett Moultrie said Monday.
“It shouldn’t have went this far. A five-game losing streak is unheard of at any level of basketball especially when you’ve got all this talent.”
Moultrie is fourth in the SEC in scoring (16.0) and tops with 10.7 rebounds and 16 double-doubles. Against Alabama, though, he was limited to just 7 points on 1-of-3 shooting.
“I hope nobody is thinking about the NCAA appearance because we’d probably have to win out and at least make it to the SEC tournament championship game to even be thought of being called on, on Selection Sunday,” Moultrie said.
Thanks to recent injuries to freshman guard/forward Rodney Hood (knee bone bruise) and sophomore guard Shaun Smith (broken finger), the Bulldogs are now down to seven players with significant playing time experience in conference play. MSU is also looking to avoid its first sub-.500 mark in SEC play since 2006.
“Now’s the time you’ve got to stay together, and you’ve got to fight together,” MSU coach Rick Stansbury said. “You win together and you lose together. It’s easy when things don’t go well to separate. The hard thing to do is to stay together and keep fighting. And we’re still playing for a lot.”
All of the national NCAA tournament bracket prognosticators have MSU between an 11-12 seed and among one of the last four to six at-large selections.
“We know what position we’ve put ourselves in after losing these last couple of games in a row,” senior guard Brian Bryant said. “As a team, we’re taking it upon ourselves to find out what the problem is within the team on our own without the coach. We’re pretty confident about the future.”
South Carolina (10-18, 2-12) are just trying to finish this season on some positive note and the Senior Night celebration of Gamecocks leading scorer Malik Cooke provides a perfect opportunity to accomplish this.
Cooke, a 6-foot-6 forward, is averaging 12.4 points per game and 4.9 rebounds per game in 31.1 minutes.
However, after losing 12 of 14 league games and five of the last six defeats by over 10 points, South Carolina coach Darrin Horn was more than honest Monday during the SEC media teleconference about his team’s confidence.
“I’d be lying if I said it was high,” Horn said.
MSU has won the last five in this series, currently its longest streak against any SEC foe. The Bulldogs also own a 65.2 winning percentage, the best against any team in the conference. Bost is second on the team in scoring and fifth in the SEC at 15.9 points, while his 62 steals and 146 assists are tops in the league.
“This is my last regular-season week in college basketball, and I’m going to do whatever it takes,” MSU senior guard Dee Bost said. “We need these two wins starting Wednesday, and we need to make a push in the tournament.”
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