STARKVILLE — Hunched over on the baseline, Mississippi State men’s basketball coach Ben Howland rested his hands on his knees.
Intently focusing on the action unfolding in front of him, Howland watched as his team built a double-digit second-half lead, again, and nearly coughed it up, again. A six-point lead quickly plummeted to one with seven seconds remaining, courtesy of two in-bounds turnovers in a seven-second span.
Nevertheless, the fifth-year MSU coach had a front-row seat to his team’s tenacity and resilience all throughout Wednesday’s win against South Carolina at Humphrey Coliseum. The Bulldogs weathered many storms from the visiting Gamecocks, made possible by cashing in a plethora of free throw attempts, eventually pulling out a much-needed 79-76 victory.
“I think this is our best win of the year,” Howland said.
With the win, MSU (17-9, 8-5 SEC) inches closer to putting itself on the right side of the bubble with five games remaining in the regular season. Despite wining six of seven contests entering Wednesday, South Carolina (16-10, 8-5) continues to find itself falling even further away from a NCAA tournament berth.
“We scrapped at the end to give ourselves a chance,” South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. “But defensively, our guards were bad today.”
South Carolina lived up to its physical reputation, forcing 22 turnovers on defense yet putting the Bulldogs on the line 36 times with 24 total fouls.
“Playing Frank Martin’s team is like getting a root canal,” Howland said. “It’s that painful.”
South Carolina entered Wednesday as the SEC’s worst free throw shooting team, making 61 percent of its foul shots. However, the Gamecocks had one of their better performances from the charity stripe this season, converting 14 of 19 free throws. On the flip side, MSU made 28 of 36 free throw attempts.
“When you get outshot like that on the free throw line, and you don’t make 3s to combat that, it’s hard to overcome,” Martin said.
The Bulldogs raced out to a 36-27 halftime lead and extended the advantage to 11 in the second period, but the Gamecocks trimmed the deficit to four more than halfway through the half.
Momentum swung momentarily after the Bulldogs extended their lead to nine courtesy on back-to-back dunks from Reggie Perry and Nick Weatherspoon in a sequence Martin will inevitably use as a 101 seminar on how not to play transition defense and Howland will showcase as textbook fastbreak offense.
“I think that was (our best stretch),” Weatherspoon said. “I wasn’t expecting the pass, though. I guess (Perry) just wanted me to dunk it. But it was a great play.”
MSU had an eight-point lead with only 24 seconds remaining, but careless turnovers put the Bulldogs in a bind after the Gamecocks reduced the deficit to one with seven ticks on the clock.
Weatherspoon made two clutch free throws, though, and MSU fouled South Carolina before the Gamecocks had a chance to get a shot off, sealing the victory.
Senior South Carolina forward Maik Kotsar had his way with MSU in the post, starting 7 of 7 from the floor and finished 24 points on a 11-of-17 shooting effort.
“That guy is going to make a lot of money,” Howland said. “I’m so happy he’s never coming back to Starkville.” Just don’t remind Howland he still has to face Kotsar one more time this season, only in Columbia, South Carolina.
Abdul Ado built off his game-winner against Arkansas on Saturday with 10 first-half points and finished with 14 while grabbing seven rebounds.
“It’s been really exciting,” Ado said. “The best part about it is knowing everyone on the whole team has to help. As a group, we try to stay positive.”
Reggie Perry had a night that won’t go on his SEC Player of the Year highlight reel, finishing 2 of 7 from the field with seven turnovers. But the sophomore forward finished with a double-double nonetheless with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
D.J. Stewart contributed 16 points, while Weatherspoon had a team-high 18 points and six assists.
MSU is back in action against Texas A&M at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in a road matchup.
“This is a big win for us,” Weatherspoon said. “They’re the hottest team in the SEC right now. Toward the end, we have to do a better job closing out the game, but overall I thought we played pretty well.”
Hodge is the former sports editor for The Dispatch.
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