STARKVILLE — Midway through the first half of the Mississippi State men’s basketball team’s season opener Friday, the crowd of 9,931 at Humphrey Coliseum had settled into a restless quiet as Eastern Washington was doing layup drills.
The biggest cheer came during a timeout when the scoreboard heralded the Bulldogs’ just-completed recruiting class for 2016, rated fifth best in the country.
Help might be on the way, but on the floor, the offensive-minded Eagles were having their way against Ben Howland’s defense, fashioning a 10-point lead 17 minutes into the game. Eastern Washington parlayed that fast start into a 51-point first half and a three-point halftime lead. The cushion would have been much larger if not for the spirited play of senior center Gavin Ware, who scored 14 points to keep the Bulldogs in striking distance.
When Eastern Washington scored the first six points of the second half in about a minute to stretch its lead back to 10, the prevailing thought rattling through the Hump was easy enough to guess:
This is going to take a while.
After three losing seasons under Rick Ray, Bulldog fans were staring at a sober reminder of not only how far MSU basketball had fallen, but how far it has to go.
As it turned out, it did take a while, at least as far as the season opener was concerned.
Thanks to a key defensive switch — putting 6-foot-6 junior Fred Thomas on point guard Austin McBroom — and a relentless transition offense, MSU turned a 60-50 deficit into a 80-70 lead during a key 10-minute stretch and cruised to a 106-88 victory in Howland’s MSU coaching debut.
“This was huge, especially the way we won tonight,” Howland said. “To come back after being down twice in both halves by 10 and to have that kind of fight, it shows a lot of heart. Eastern Washington is a good team, and this is a good RPI win for us when we look back on it in March.”
MSU received career efforts from Ware (26 points, 13 rebounds, three blocked shots) and point guard I.J. Ready (25 points, six assists). Thomas added 10 points and delivered pivotal defensive play.
“Gavin Ware was tremendous tonight,” Howland said. “And when we switched Fred to (McBroom), that was when we made our run to get the lead. We switched him because we couldn’t stay in front of the guy. It was really, really sad.”
Forward Travis Daniels added 16 points, while freshman guard Quinndary Weatherspoon had 12 in his first collegiate game.
“I just love (Weatherspoon’s) poise,” Howland said. “He’s just so cool. He doesn’t get ruffled. He’s going to be a really good player. The kid has a chance.”
MSU’s other freshman, Malik Newman, dressed but didn’t play as he recovers from a turf toe. The consensus top-10 freshman, who was named a second-team All-SEC performer before playing a college game, is expected to see his first game action Monday against Southern.
Howland said he was particularly pleased with the Bulldogs’ relentless transition offense.
“We were really good offensively in transition,” he said. “If you look at our 106 points, I bet we had half of them in transition.”
MSU shot 61.2 percent from the field (41 of 66).
Although he pronounced the game a success, Howland said there was plenty for this team to work on. Eastern Washington shot 50.8 percent from the field, including 58.8 percent in the first half.
“Nobody’s fearful of our defense,” Howland said, taking blame for the slow start in the second half that led to Eastern Washington’s second 10-point lead. “That was my fault for playing that stupid zone. I hate zone and I’m a bad zone coach. That was evident tonight, so we’ve got to learn to play man-to-man without fouling, and we’ve got to get better in our zone because we are going to have to use it some.”
NOTES: The 106 points was the most scored by a MSU team since a 106-68 victory against Troy in 2012. The total is the 23rd-most points score in team history. … The crowd of 9,131 was the biggest home crowd since a crowd of 10,213 watched a 73-64 loss to Kentucky on Feb. 21, 2012.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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