STARKVILLE — When Mississippi State’s men’s basketball players walked into the home locker room at the Humphrey Coliseum on Friday afternoon, their eyes were drawn to a message coach Rick Ray had written on a white board at the front of the room.
That message: “Perception vs. reality.”
“I told them the perception of us because of how many games we’ve lost is we are a bad basketball team,” said Ray, whose team had lost six of its past seven games. “I also told them that in reality we are a good basketball team. We just haven’t been showing it.”
MSU’s reality caught up with Ray’s perception against Florida State.
MSU attacked the rim and used a 40-26 advantage in points in the paint and committed only three turnovers in the second half en route to a much-needed 62-55 win before an announced crowd of 5,190.
“This is a huge win,” said Ray, whose team improved to 7-6. “Florida State is a quality team. They had just beaten Florida. I knew tonight was a big opportunity against a good team on a national stage. I really wanted our guys to be successful tonight, and they were.”
Three days after a 66-47 loss to Southland Conference member McNeese State, MSU was a different bunch against FSU. The Bulldogs, who trailed 25-22 at halftime, were aggressive offensively and suffocating defensively, displaying a tenacity Ray described “as our best cumulative effort in a long time. It wasn’t just one guy out there giving effort, it was all five guys doing it at once.”
The Bulldogs, who averaged just 54 points per game in a five-game losing streak that erased a 5-0 start, outscored the Seminoles 40-30 in the second half.
Point guard I.J. Ready, a sophomore from Little Rock, Arkansas, set the tone in the second half, delivering six-straight points in a 10-2 run before the first media timeout.
“Those were all defensive points,” Ready said. “I had two steals in a row that led to layups. Then I hit a little jumper. That’s all defensive energy. I try to be an energy guy, somebody who gets the team going. That stretch is what I try to bring to the table.”
Ready scored 12 of his team-high 14 points after halftime. Junior guard Travis Daniels (12) and junior forward Gavin Ware, who returned to the lineup after a two-game absence due to an ankle injury, (10) also scored in double figures.
“We don’t win that game tonight without Gavin Ware,” Ray said. “Fallou (Ndoye) got into foul trouble, so we had to go small. Without Gavin there tonight, we would have been in trouble.”
Even though MSU was 2-for-14 from 3-point range, it made up for it by being efficient offensively. MSU scored 40 points in the paint thanks to the aggressiveness of Ready and Daniels.
“It was about being aggressive and getting to the basket,” Daniels said. “We knew Florida State was a big team, but our coaches told us to not be scared, to go right at them.”
For Ready, the Bulldogs’ increased effort was a result of a series of meetings after the loss to McNeese State.
“We had a meeting with coach Ray, and he really told us what we needed to hear,” Ready said. “Then we had a players’-only meeting, and we got some things straightened out.”
Ray was blunt about the talks.
“We had a ‘Come-to-Jesus’ meeting,” Ray said. “We as coaches were able to say some things to our team. Things that aren’t for public consumption. Then the players got together, probably said some things about their coaches that needed to be said. It was more about fixing what was wrong. We really didn’t focus of Florida State that much. We just focused on us.”
After shooting 38 percent from the field in the first half, MSU shot 53 percent in the second half and took control.
FSU coach Leonard Hamilton noticed MSU’s renewed vigor.
“(MSU) played with a much greater sense of urgency right from the beginning of the game than we did,” said Hamilton, whose team fell to 8-6. “They played like their backs were against the wall. They played with a desperate mentality that every possession was important. In reality, they outplayed us from a mental and emotional standpoint.”
FSU, which lost three days after winning 65-63 at Florida, was led in scoring by guard Devon Bookert (game-high 16 points). Guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes added 12.
But the night belonged to MSU. After trailing by six twice in the second half, FSU whittled the deficit to 54-53 with one minute to go. But junior guard Craig Sword banked home a running jumper and the Bulldogs made six consecutive free throws to end the game on an 8-3 run to claim their biggest non-conference win of the season.
Sword, who is working his way back from an early season back injury, scored eight points.
Ware, a Starkville High School product, led MSU with eight rebounds.
“It was big to have all five guys out there playing together,” Ray said. “To do that against a team the quality of Florida State tells me the reality is we are a good basketball team. Now we just have to continue what we saw tonight.”
MSU will play host to Tennessee at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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