STARKVILLE — Craig Sword was visibly upset.
Moments after delivering his finest performance of the season for Mississippi State’s basketball team, the junior sullenly appeared outside of the visiting locker room at the University of Mississippi’s Tad Smith Coliseum Wednesday night. With a towel draped over his shoulder and his bare feet still appearing to hurt from the 40-minute grind that was MSU’s 79-73 loss to Ole Miss, Sword was despondent after the Bulldogs came close before falling short.
“It’s not a good night,” said Sword, who scored a season-high 27 points. “It was the game I needed, personally, because I finally had a big night. But it wasn’t what we needed as a team, because we lost.
“It’s frustrating to get so close and to keep losing.”
That’s the challenge now for MSU coach Rick Ray, as his team begins to battle mounting frustrations amid a brutal Southeastern Conference schedule.
After a dreadful December that included home losses to Arkansas State and McNeese State, Ray’s Bulldog have been much better in January, only the improvement hasn’t yet made a dent on MSU’s overall record. Over the Bulldogs’ past five games, MSU is only 2-3. But after a December stretch that was marked by a 1-6 record and an average of 52 points per game, the Bulldogs are averaging 68.6 over the last five games, and the result has been a much more competitive MSU team. Starting with a 74-70 loss on the road at Texas A&M on Jan. 13, MSU has lost its last three games by an average of just five points, which included six-point losses to Georgia and Ole Miss.
“That’s the thing we are battling right now,” said Ray, whose team is 9-11 overall and just 2-5 in league play. “Anyone who watches us can tell we are an improved basketball team. But it’s not enough to be improved, we have to start winning these games. We haven’t turned that corner yet.”
That corner has proven to be a big obstacle for the Bulldogs so far. Though seemingly getting better with each game, the Bulldogs have been bitten by a different achilles heel in each of their past three losses. Against Texas A&M, it was an inability to protect the basketball, as MSU turned the ball over 14 times to blow a 28-27 halftime lead. Against Georgia, a leaky zone defense proved to be MSU’s demise, as Georgia point guard J.J. Frazier pumped in a career-high 37 points – 28 above his average – in the six-point win. And at Oxford, MSU sent Ole Miss to the free throw line 35 times while losing double-digit leads in each half.
Still, there have been positives.
The Bulldogs shot 56 percent at Ole Miss, the Bulldog’s high-water mark in conference play this season, and have outrebounded five straight opponents.
For MSU’s players, the effort is there. The improvements are being made. The team is getting better. But the wins haven’t yet followed.
“Just keep working,” said MSU point guard I.J. Ready, who leads the Bulldogs with 11.3 points per game in conference play. “We know we are a good team. We know we are getting better but we just have to keep fighting to make sure it shows on the scoreboard.”
It hasn’t just been MSU players and coaches who have noticed the Bulldogs’ recent upswing.
“Mississippi State gave us a heck of a shot,” said Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy. “They play extremely hard and took the fight to us all night.”
‘The best I’ve seen’
The toughest part about MSU continuing to get better is that the Bulldogs haven’t arrived at the toughest part of their SEC schedule yet. That begins in earnest on Saturday, when the Bulldogs return home to host LSU (16-4, 5-2). Over the next 10 games, the Bulldogs have road tests at Tennessee, at Arkansas and at Missouri, and will host LSU, Ole Miss, Arkansas and No. 1 Kentucky, among others.
For Ray, the brutal proving ground that is February basketball hasn’t been kind so far. In his first two seasons at MSU, Ray has never won a game in February, going 0-16 (0-8 in 2012-13, 0-8 in 2013-14). Making that even more daunting is the fact that Ray believes this year’s version of the SEC is the toughest he’s faced yet.
“Of course I haven’t seen everybody,” said Ray, “but certainly from who we’ve played and the fights we’ve had, I think the league from top-to-bottom is the best it has been in several years.”
As for his players, Ray was asked if continually getting close but failing to break through could lead to lesser efforts from his Bulldogs. The coach disagreed.
“These are good kids,” said Ray. “When we recruit these guys, when we bring them in and coach them, we know they are not the type that will quit, so I don’t expect their effort to drop off at all.”
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