Mississippi State Men’s Basketball Falls to Tennessee 76-54 after Sluggish Second Half

Ben Howland and the Mississippi State men’s basketball team went toe to toe with one of the SEC’s best in Tennessee for exactly one half tonight. And that’s about it. The Bulldogs came out with a disappointing performance in the second half and dropped the game in frustrating fashion to the #16th ranked Volunteers.

Quinndary Weatherspoon paced the Bulldogs in both points and rebounds with 17 and 6 respectively. Weatherspoon tied with Lamar Peters in assists, as both had 2. For the Volunteers, Admiral Schofield was by far the best scorer with 24 points. Schofield was tied with Grant Williams for 7 rebounds a piece. Williams, in turn, was tied with Lamonte Turner for 4 assists each.

And, if you didn’t guess, Tennessee outpaced the home team in each of those categories as a total team.

MSU’s totals for assists came out to be a meager total of 6. Tennessee had over double that number with 14 assists. When it comes to rebounds, Tennessee pulled down 34, 10 more than Mississippi State’s 24. And, as you know, the Volunteers had 22 more points than the State, beating the Bulldogs 76-54.

With the loss, Mississippi State is now 21-9 overall and is 9-8 in SEC play with another SEC game to play and the conference tournament still remaining. The 21 wins are the most that Mississippi State has had since the 2011-2012 season. Mississippi State hasn’t finished with at least a 50% winning percentage in conference play since that season.

This is the best year that the Bulldogs have had in quite some time and the season isn’t done just yet. Though MSU won’t be playing at home, where they went 18-2, Mississippi State still has games ahead of it to still be played. Valuable games that will give the younger members of this team needed experience before heading into next season. This year isn’t done just yet.