Missouri and Mississippi State came to the Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville and tried to improve their position with the NCAA tournament committee.
This process will continue when the seventh seeded tigers (21-10) meet the 10-seeded bulldogs (21-11) in the second round of the SEC tournament on Thursday evening.
The 21-ranked tigers offered a top-four seed in the SEC tour and a top-four seed in the NCAA field earlier this season. Then they closed their league’s schedule by losing four out of five matches.
“We still left a lot on the table, where I thought we could have turned the corner and ended in a double village, even competed for a (conference) championship,” said the Tigers coach Dennis Gates. “Things needed to happen that didn’t.”
Missouri enjoyed success earlier this season and forced live ball turns by applying man-to-man-defensive pressure and mixing in match-up zones that extend past the 3-point line.
But during the last four losses, the tigers allowed an average of 94 points.
“We know what we can do,” Missouri said forward Mark Mitchell, who leads tigers with an average of 14.3 points and adds 4.7 returns per match. “We know what kind of team we have, and we will continue to work.”
Gates expanded his game rotation to 10 and 11 players on different points this season, so he doesn’t think fatigue was taken into account in his team’s late Fade. Only four tigers on average more than 23 minutes per match.
“It has not crawled into our program,” Gates said. “What I see is that our guys … instead of targeting guys, we have been the goal.”
Missouri won the previous meeting with Bulldogs 88-61 in Starkville, Miss, February 1, with Caleb Grill which scored 20 points from the bench and Tamar Bates, which adds 14. Grill average 14.2 points per match this season and Bate’s average 12.9.
Josh Hubbard scored 24 points for Mississippi State in that loss to Missouri, and Keshawn Murphy scored 16 points from the bench.
“We were on a winning line 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 Basket.
“We have a great opportunity to get our” get “back.”
Mississippi State Coach Chris Jans came to Nashville with a simple goal.
“Win games, win games,” he said. “It’s the mantra, that’s the goal. Win as many games as we can.
“Does that mean we play (in the title) Sunday? I hope so,” Jans added.
While Tigers had a village 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 intervals.
“When we were returned on Monday to get ready for the SEC tournament, (defense) was the message,” Jans told the SEC network. “If we are going to go there we will play our brand of basketball. We just haven’t been as good at it this year.”
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