Missouri and Mississippi State came to the Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville seeking to improve their standing with the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
That process will continue when the seventh-seeded Tigers (21-10) face the 10th-seeded Bulldogs (21-11) in the second round of the SEC tournament on Thursday night.
The No. 21-ranked Tigers were bidding for a top-four seed in the SEC tourney and a top-four seed in the NCAA field earlier this season. Then they closed their league schedule by losing four of five games.
“We still left a lot on the table, where I thought we could have turned the corner and finished in a double bye, even competed for a (conference) championship,” Tigers coach Dennis Gates said. “Things needed to happen that didn’t.”
Missouri enjoyed success earlier this season, forcing live-ball turnovers by applying man-to-man defensive pressure and mixing in match-up zones extending past the 3-point line.
But during their past four losses, the Tigers allowed an average of 94 points.
“We know what we can do,” said Missouri forward Mark Mitchell, who leads the Tigers with an average of 14.3 points and adds 4.7 rebounds per game. “We know the type of team we have, and we’re going to keep working.”
Gates extended his playing rotation to 10 and 11 players at various points this season, so he doesn’t believe fatigue factored into his team’s late fade. Only four Tigers average more than 23 minutes per game.
“It has not creeped into our program,” Gates said. “What I do see is that our guys … instead of targeting guys, we’ve been the target.”
Missouri won the earlier meeting with the Bulldogs 88-61 in Starkville, Miss., on Feb. 1, with Caleb Grill scoring 20 points off the bench and Tamar Bates adding 14. Grill averages 14.2 points per game this season and Bates averages 12.9.
Josh Hubbard scored 24 points for Mississippi State in that loss to Missouri, and KeShawn Murphy scored 16 points off the bench.
“We were on a winning streak, and we just underestimated them,” Hubbard told the SEC Network. “It was an early game, and we didn’t play our best basketball — we didn’t play Bulldog basketball.
“We have a good opportunity to get our ‘get’ back.”
Mississippi State coach Chris Jans came to Nashville with a simple goal.
“Win games, win games,” he said. “That’s the mantra, that’s the goal. Win as many games as we can.
“Does that mean we’re playing (in the title game) Sunday? I hope so,” Jans added.
While the Tigers had a bye Wednesday, the Bulldogs rolled over LSU 91-62 behind Hubbard’s 26 points.
Mississippi State held LSU to 39.3 percent shooting from the field, including 19.2 percent (5-for-26) from 3-point range.
“When we reconvened on Monday to get ready for the SEC tournament, (defense) was the message,” Jans told the SEC Network. “If we’re going to go down there, we’re going to play our brand of basketball. We just haven’t been as good at it this year.”
–Field Level Media
