STARKVILLE — The 2014-15 season isn’t about wins and losses for Mississippi State guard Craig Sword.
It’s about becoming himself again.
That’s the battle Sword, who led MSU in scoring (13.7 points per game as a sophomore, is fighting as he recovers from offseason back surgery that sidelined him for the first four games of the season. So far, the ultra-athletic, 6-foot-3, 196-pound shooting guard from Montgomery, Alabama, hasn’t found his scoring touch or swagger.
“I feel like I’m getting close to 100 percent, maybe 85 or 90,” said Sword, who had surgery to repair a herniated disc in his back three weeks prior to the season opener. “Physically I feel OK, but it hasn’t really showed up for me in a game yet.”
That’s why Sword has struggled. His plight has been a microcosm of a bigger problem: MSU is last in the Southeastern Conference in scoring (60.3 ppg.). A year after shooting 48 percent from the field, Sword is shooting 32.7 percent from the field and is averaging a career-low 4.4 ppg.
Sword, who led the team in free throws attempted (179) in 2013-14, has attempted 22 free throws this season.
“The back injury is just one of those things,” MSU coach Rick Ray. “He just doesn’t have that explosiveness, that extra gear he’s had all his life. The challenge for (Sword) is to learn how to affect the game in other ways. Even if he doesn’t score, he has to be able to have a positive effect on the outcome of the game, and we haven’t seen that yet.”
Entering the season averaging 12.1 ppg. for his career, Sword has reached double figures once, an 11-point performance in a 66-47 loss to McNeese State. He has been held scoreless four times, and he scored two points Tuesday night in a 74-70 loss at Texas A&M.
MSU (7-9, 0-3 Southeastern Conference) has struggled as much as Sword. It will have a chance to get back on track at 3 p.m. Saturday when it plays host to Vanderbilt at Humphrey Coliseum.
Sword’s teammates believe he will reverse his fortunes.
“He will be all right,” MSU point guard I.J. Ready said earlier this season. “He is fighting. We are all fighting. We know he will get back to his old self.”
Ray and the Bulldogs hope a healthy Sword will provide a spark for a team that has lost nine of 11 games.
“I am just going to continue to work hard and try to find my rhythm,” Sword said after a 61-47 loss to Tennessee on Jan. 7 in the SEC opener. “It has been frustrating, but you can’t dwell on anything. You have to keep fighting.”
n Former MSU coach passes away: Bob Boyd, the MSU men’s basketball coach from 1982-86, died Wednesday at his home in Palm Desert, California, reportedly due to natural causes. He was 84.
In five seasons leading the Bulldogs, Boyd went 55-87. He was named SEC Coach of the Year in the 1984-85 season after his team collected nine SEC wins. In his final season, he led MSU to upsets of Vanderbilt and Auburn and into the semifinals of the SEC tournament.
“Coach Boyd was a very, very important person in my life,” said former MSU coach Richard Williams, who was as assistant coach under Boyd. “He was a great teacher that truly understood the game of basketball. Lots of people copied what he did and took notice as to how detailed he was. Coach was a very, very smart person that knew a lot more than just basketball. People just didn’t know that because he never showed that side of him. It’s a tragic loss for all of us that knew him.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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