STARKVILLE — Rick Ray won’t pretend the numbers are pretty.
With his team having lost eight of its past 10 games, the Mississippi State third-year men’s basketball coach was asked to pinpoint where things have gone wrong.
Ray didn’t hesitate.
“We’ve got to find a lineup that gives us the best chance to score points,” said Ray, whose team is 7-8 and 0-2 in the Southeastern Conference. “Offensively, we are just not a very good basketball team right now.”
The numbers back up that statement. The Bulldogs have scored 47 points in three of their past four games and have lost all three (66-47 to McNeese State, 61-47 to Tennessee, and 72-47 loss at Florida). The Bulldogs have been held under the 50-point plateau five times this season and have topped the 60-point mark four times.
At 59.6 points per game, MSU is last in the SEC in scoring and No. 317 nationally, nestled between Maryland-Eastern Shore and Prairie View.
MSU also has been outscored 26-4 in the opening five minutes of its past two games.
“I thought we did everything we wanted to do against Tennessee to win that game,” Ray said. “We got to the foul line, executed our game plan. But I had never seen a game where a team shots 45 free throws, holds a team to 35 percent shooting and then loses.
“Against Florida, we had one of our old problems crop up. I think Florida scored 19 points off turnovers in the first half, and we’re not good enough to overcome that.”
MSU’s offensive struggles are defining its season. Tonight, MSU will visit Texas A&M (9-5, 0-2), which took No. 1 Kentucky to double overtime on Saturday.
“I think Texas A&M is one of the best defensive teams in the conference,” Ray said.
Texas A&M may not have to be great defensively against MSU. The Bulldogs are shooting 42 percent from the field and 26 percent from 3-point range, which are last in the SEC. MSU also isn’t getting to the rim or creating easy shots. It has 120 assists in 15 games, a total that is No. 343 (out of 345) in Division I teams. The teams behind MSU in that category, New Orleans and Grambling, have each played fewer games than MSU.
So how does MSU turn things around offensively?
“It’s so frustrating,” said MSU guard Craig Sword, who averaged a team-best 13.7 points per game a year ago and is averaging 4.6 points this season. “We know we are better than this. We just have to work harder in practice and execute.”
Junior forward Gavin Ware, a post player from Starkville High, agreed.
“We can play better,” Ware said. “It’s about working our offense and doing what we know how to do. For whatever reason, we are not doing that.”
Ware’s shooting percentage (52.1 percent) is a career low this season, a common theme on MSU’s team. Of the six Bulldogs who had playing experience prior to this season, only guard I.J. Ready and forward Roquez Johnson are shooting at a higher clip than last season.
Ray, though, believes MSU’s offensive problems emanate from an inability to protect the basketball, not from shooting.
“The biggest way to manufacture points is to not give the ball to the other team,” Ray said. “When you’re giving a quality team like Florida extra possessions, you’re already behind the eight ball.”
MSU is third in the league in scoring defense, but it is in the bottom five of the league in every major offensive category, including last in scoring, 3-point shooting, assists, and turnover ratio.
“We can’t sugarcoat things,” Ray said. “When you have an intervention, you’re told the first thing you have to do is admit your problems. We’ve had a lot of talks and our guys have been up front about our problems. We just have to figure out a way to fix it.”
n Ray unmoved by facing Stansbury: MSU will face a familiar face tonight.
Rick Stansbury, MSU’s former coach who retired after in 2012 and was replaced by Ray, is in his first season as an assistant coach for Texas A&M coach Billy Kennedy.
Asked if facing Stansbury would be uncomfortable, Ray dismissed the notion.
“I don’t have any sort of weird feeling going up against any other coaches,” Ray said. “It may be different for him. He was here. He might feel a bit of nostalgia in facing us, but I haven’t thought about that much. There’s nothing to it from my end. He’s a coach on the other team, and I’m trying to figure out a way to win this game.”
Stansbury led MSU’s program for 14 years. He left as the school’s all-time leader in wins.
n Butler awarded scholarship: On Monday, MSU announced senior guard Isaiah Butler, a walk-on from Brandon High, was awarded a full scholarship. Butler, who hasn’t scored this season, was given his scholarship by Ray in a team meeting.
“It was really a touching moment inside our locker room when I told him about being on scholarship,” Ray said. “The guys in that room know how much he sacrifices and how much he cares about the basketball team. It was always something rewarding. This is what you get in this business to do, to help young men out. That’s an actual moment where you can see it coming to fruition. I’m happy for him, and I’m glad the guys went up and showed him they cared about him and were happy, genuinely happy, about him being on scholarship.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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