LSU Knocks off Mississippi State with Buzzer Beater

BATON ROUGE, La. — The Mississippi State men’s basketball team experienced a heartbreaker Saturday night, falling to LSU 60-59 on a buzzer-beating jumper by Tigers senior guard Skylar Mays at Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

MSU falls to 9-6 (0-3 SEC), while LSU improves to 11-4 (3-0 SEC).

Tied up 6-6 with 15:30 left in the first half, LSU scored the next six points to go up 12-6. The Tigers then got their lead up to 11 points at 23-12 with 8:56 to go.

A 10-2 run by the Bulldogs allowed State to draw within three points at 25-22 with 2:36 left in the first stanza. The Tigers scored the final five points of the half as State went into the halftime break trailing 30-22.

The Tigers took a double-digit lead at 34-24 with 17:50 to play, but the Bulldogs used a run of 12-2 to take a 38-37 lead with 13:05 to play in the game and then a 12-0 run to take a 53-44 lead with 5:18 to go.

The Tigers roared back with a 7-0 run to draw within two points at 53-51 with 3:09 to play before retaking a 57-55 lead with 1:06 to play.

A pair of free throws by junior guard Nick Weatherspoon tied the game at 57-57 with 50 seconds to go, but an LSU free throw made it 58-57 with 43 seconds left.

A layup by sophomore forward Reggie Perry gave the Bulldogs a 59-58 lead with 4.6 seconds left. Then, with four ticks left on the clock, Mays, guarded by Weatherspoon, raced down the left side of the floor, made a spin move and knocked down an 18-foot buzzer-beating jumper to give LSU a 60-59 win.

Weatherspoon led the squad with 14 points on 4-of-13 shooting. Perry finished with 13 points on 5-of-13 shooting to go along with 15 rebounds for his eighth double-double of the year. Redshirt junior forward Abdul Ado recorded a double-double of his own, finishing with 12 points on 3-of-7 shooting to go with 12 boards.

As a unit, the Bulldogs shot 19-of-56 from the field (33.9%), including 3-of-17 (17.6%) from 3-point range. The Tigers shot 22-of-59 (37.3%) from the field and 2-of-21 (9.5%) from beyond the arc. State held a 49-31 rebounding edge.

The Bulldogs will now return home to host Missouri on Tuesday. Tip time is scheduled for 8 p.m. and will be televised by SEC Network.