No. 14 Mississippi State won its Southeastern Conference road opener with a 76-64 win at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday.
RJ Melendez (19 points), Cameron Matthews (16) and Claudell Harris Jr. (13) led the Bulldogs (14-1, 2-0 SEC) in scoring.
AJ Hoggard (18), Grant Huffman (12) and Tyler Nickel (10) paced the Commodores (13-2, 1-1) in points.
The Bulldogs capitalized on a distinct advantage in size, quickness and athleticism on both ends of the floor, snapping Vanderbilt’s seven-game winning streak and handing the Commodores their first home loss.
Offensively for Mississippi State, that meant driving the ball relentlessly from several positions on the floor, with Melendez particularly having success off the dribble.
Defensively, that meant holding Vanderbilt — the country’s 34th-ranked offense in adjusted efficiency, according to Ken Pomeroy — to 35.5 percent field-goal shooting and just 11 assists against 13 turnovers.
The Bulldogs held Jason Edwards, Vanderbilt’s leading scorer (18.3 points per game), scoreless on 0-of-8 shooting in 11 minutes. Edwards played through a thigh contusion suffered on Saturday at LSU.
MSU’s Harris hit an open 3 from the right side, giving the Bulldogs a 14-point lead (42-28) on the opening possession of the second half.
The lead became 20 for the first time when Melendez, standing on the left side behind the 3-point line, saw daylight in the middle of the paint and drove in for a thunderous, two-handed dunk for a 52-32 Bulldogs lead.
That lead ballooned to 22 shortly after on a Melendez layup.
Vanderbilt then picked up the defensive intensity and went on a 9-0 run culminating with Tyler Tanner’s fastbreak layup with 10:54 left. MSU’s Josh Hubbard hit a layup to break that run, but the Commodores had another spurt and got within 68-63 when Hoggard hit a layup with 4:19 left.
A Harris 3 out of a timeout pushed the lead back to eight.
Minutes later, the Bulldogs triple-teamed Hoggard along the right baseline, forcing a turnover that led to a Matthews dunk to make it 10 with 2:07 left.
Vanderbilt led by five early in the first half, but that turned quickly as the Bulldogs took their first lead on a Matthews bucket with 13:25 left.
The Bulldogs dominated the half from there, building a 39-28 lead at the break.
–Field Level Media
