The South Carolina men’s basketball team was defeated by the Mississippi State Bulldogs on Tuesday night by a final score of 78-64. The road loss snaps a three game win streak for the Gamecocks, forcing their conference record to fall to 4-5, and their overall record to fall to 13-8.
Graduate student guard James Reese led South Carolina in points early on and continued to hold this leading position throughout the end of the game. Reese finished with 15 points.
“James is wired,” head coach Frank Martin said. “I don’t have to ask him to compete, I don’t have to ask him to listen, he comes in every day and he’s going.”
However, Reese’s efforts alone were not enough against Mississippi.
“I will say, everybody got a job out there,” Reese said. “Everybody should hold up their own end of the stick, that’s when we’re at our best. We just got to get back to practice.”
Mississippi State played hard, earning a 20 point lead before the end of the first half. Although the Gamecocks fought back with some steady scoring, the Bulldogs maintained a double-digit lead for most of the game.
“Give Mississippi State credit, they had lost some tough games here,” Martin said. “They came in here on edge and defended and brought a physicality to the game.”
The Bulldogs had a strong defense allowing for its sizable advantage to hold steady into the second half of the game.
South Carolina was out rebounded by the Bulldogs 41-24. Mississippi State out rebounded the Gamecocks 29-15 on the defensive side of the ball.
“We didn’t do a very good job of answering the bell,” Martin said. “They dictated the game offensively and defensively, and we can’t do that on the road against good teams and expect to win.”
Mississippi State had an impressive performance at home, especially considering South Carolina took care of the ball and had a low percentage of turnovers. The Gamecocks turned the ball over 10 times and forced 19 turnovers.
Despite this disadvantage of the boards, the Gamecocks closed the gap considerably in the second half. South Carolina outscored Mississippi State 41-33 in the second half, but it wasn't enough to overcome a massive deficit.
“We will be alright,” Martin said. “We just had a bad day at the office and Mississippi State was on point and they came after us, and we couldn’t respond early enough to slow the bleeding the way we needed to.”
South Carolina will travel back home to Columbia for its next game against No. 22 Tennessee. The last time the two teams played each other the Volunteers handed the Gamecocks a 20 points loss in Knoxville.
The game is on Feb. 5 at 1 p.m. and can be viewed on CBS.