STARKVILLE — The Mississippi State men’s basketball team earned its fourth victory of the season Monday, but none of the Bulldogs celebrated.
In the moments following MSU’s 59-46 win against Division II Clayton State, some Bulldogs barely acknowledged the win.
“It felt like a loss,” MSU point guard Trivante Bloodman said. “The way we came out and played, it felt real sluggish. We missed a lot of shots, didn’t play well. I don’t know if it was because we just had another game a couple days ago or something else, but it didn’t feel like a win.”
Despite the less-than-celebratory mood after the game, the Bulldogs still finished a season-opening four-game home stand perfect. For MSU third-year head coach Rick Ray, the win left a lot to be desired.
“I’m disappointed with the way our guys approached this game,” Ray said. “I knew when we saw Clayton State on the schedule this week, as we get ready for this tournament coming up, I knew it would be challenging to get the team up for this game. Coming off a big win, this was our first test at handling success, and we didn’t do a very good job.”
Two days after a 71-63 win against previously unbeaten Utah State, MSU looked sloppy and never put Clayton State, which is from Morrow, Georgia, away. The Bulldogs hit 19 of 50 shots from the field, good for a season-low 38 percent. MSU was 0-for-7 from 3-point range and made only three shots outside the paint.
Senior Roquez Johnson, who has scored at least 15 points in all four games this season, scored that many to lead MSU. He also had a team-high eight rebounds.
“We took some ill-advised shots,” Ray said. “If you look at it, 20 of our 29 points in the first half were inside the paint. It’s pretty easy to decide what you need to do against Clayton State with our size advantage, but we didn’t get the ball down low enough. We are not a great shooting team. We have to get the ball in the paint more.”
Bloodman added 12 points and junior Gavin Ware had 11. Ware, who entered averaging 15 points and eight rebounds per game, has scored in double digits in all four games.
The Bulldogs’ poor execution was evident from the start. They missed their first six shots from the field and finished the first half with 29 points, the lowest first-half total of the season, and led 29-20 at halftime.
“We kept trying to feed the ball in to the post,” Bloodman said. “We were getting open shots. We were just missing them.”
The Bulldogs shot 31 percent (10-for-32) in the first 20 minutes.
In the second half, MSU threatened to put the game away several times. Midway through the second half, MSU owned its largest lead, 50-28, but the Lakers cut the deficit to eight with four minutes remaining.
MSU committed 12 turnovers and had only five assists.
“Some of these guys have a harsh reality coming,” Ray said. “We’ve got guys like (point guard) I.J. Ready getting healthy and we have (shooting guard Craig Sword) coming back soon. Some of these guys playing right now are going to see their minutes greatly diminished, and they need to show us a reason they need to keep playing.”
Guards Kelsey Terry and J.C. Bonny led Clayton State (4-1) with 14 and 13 points, respectively.
MSU will next play its first road game at 8:30 p.m. Friday when it plays St. Louis in the Corpus Christi Coastal Challenge in Corpus Christi, Texas.
“I’m sure there were positives (against Clayton State), but as coaches we mostly tend to look at the negatives,” Ray said. “If there were positives, I can’t point them out right now.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 38 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.