Mississippi State thought it was reaching a peak for the stretch run after recording consecutive double-digit wins against ranked teams.
Then the Bulldogs went on the road and lost to Oklahoma before getting routed by No. 6 Alabama on Tuesday.
No. 24 Mississippi State (19-9, 7-8 Southeastern Conference) will try to get back on track when it faces LSU on Saturday afternoon in Starkville, Miss.
“We felt like we were hitting our stride and that we had kind of figured it out,” Bulldogs coach Chris Jans said of an 81-71 victory at then-No. 19 Ole Miss on Feb. 15 and a 70-54 home victory against then-No. 7 Texas A&M on Feb. 18.
“We were playing better than we were earlier, and the mood was really good,” Jans added.
Then came a 93-87 loss to the unranked Sooners on Saturday and a 111-73 setback to the Crimson Tide in which Jans said Mississippi State “took a left turn.”
“We got too comfortable with those two wins,” forward RJ Melendez said. “I feel like our connection hasn’t been as strong the last two games as it had been. … We’ve got to move on to the next one and focus on LSU because every single game matters at this point.”
The Bulldogs have lost five of their last eight games, and six of their SEC losses have come against teams that were ranked in the Associated Press Top 10 at the time of the games.
“You have to take care of the opportunities that you get,” Jans said. “You’ve got to be able to pull your person off the ground and regroup. You’ve got to understand that you can’t let that turn into a snowball effect.
“There are probably more teams in our league that have Final Four potential than in the history of any league just due to the numbers that everybody has put up, and the quality of teams that we have this year.”
LSU’s last two games were home losses to teams with Final Four potential. The Tigers fell to No. 5 Tennessee 65-59 on Tuesday, three days after losing to No. 2 Florida 79-65.
“For us to win (Tuesday’s) game or Saturday’s game, we needed to shoot the ball well from 3 and cut the second-chance points down,” Tigers coach Matt McMahon said. “We were unable to do so.”
LSU shot 7 of 27 on 3-pointers and was outscored 27-8 on second-chance points against the Volunteers. Against the Gators, the Tigers made 9 of 31 from 3-point range and got outscored 17-8 on second-chance points.
McMahon called Tennessee’s advantage in second-chance points “the difference in the game.”
“Our field-goal defense (41.1 percent) was certainly good enough to give us a chance,” McMahon said, “but when you’re playing against a team that’ll contend to go to the Final Four, you can’t give up that many second opportunities.”
The Tigers trailed by 15 points with 3:24 left before finishing on a 13-4 run.
“I think we do it to ourselves a lot of times,” guard Cam Carter said. “We’re just going to take these mistakes and then fix them and carry them onto the next game and just keep getting better.”
–Field Level Media
