Mississippi State Easily Defeats Div. II Delta State in Exhibition
Ladies and gentlemen, Mississippi State basketball is officially back. Not only is the season back, the team looks better than ever. Tonight, Rick Ray led his 2014-2015 Mississippi State Men’s Basketball squad onto the court of Humphrey Coliseum against Division II foe Delta State from Cleveland, MS. The starting lineup was a little different than we should expect with injuries to guards Craig Sword and IJ Ready. The team, however, didn’t seem to miss a beat tonight as they dispatched of the Statesmen 72-51 in Exhibition play.
The starting lineup for the Bulldogs featured four returning Bulldogs and one JUCO transfer. The scoring, however, was mostly led by the newcomers to the team. Gavin Ware, the anchor on the team, led the way with 19 points and 6 rebounds. Then two freshmen on the team followed as Demetrius Houston and Fallou Ndoye scored 12 and 11 points respectively. Junior college transfer Travis Daniels, while not putting up amazing scoring numbers by not scoring until the second half, picked up the slack by hitting the boards. Daniels finished with 5 points and 8 rebounds, then added on an assist for good measure.
One of the main things that I saw throughout the game was the effort put forth by the team in implementing Rick Ray’s defense that he has been begging to run. The team created 25 turnovers in the game due to running a full-court trap defense when Delta State took the ball from the baseline. This proved effective as multiple shot clock violations and even a 10-second backcourt violation were called through the course of the game. Turnovers and violations are only part of the story, however, as Mississippi State held a sometimes relentless Statesmen offense to shooting only 17-46 from the floor for 37%. Two players for the Statesmen hit double digits with guard Devin Schmidt getting 25 points and Jack Madgen getting 11. Other than those two players, Delta State failed to have a player with more than 4 points in the game. Schmidt kept hitting contested threes for the most part, while being left open for a few.
Offensively, the Bulldogs seemed to do quite well. With the exception of a few 3 minute stretches that didn’t exactly go the way of the Bulldogs, the offense seemed to fire on all cylinders. The Mississippi State basketball team shot 26-for-59 from the field for a 44.1% clip. When the Bulldogs did get to the line, they hit their free points just about every time. They ended up with a 18-24 mark from the stripe giving them a 75% rating. This certainly isn’t what we want to see from the strip as 100% is the goal, but it’s a step in the right direction for sure. The Bulldogs also seemed to be sharing the ball a lot more. The team totaled 15 assists which is over their 12 turnovers. Certainly the numbers are closer than you would like to see from your team, but as long as you have more assists than turnovers you most likely will win.
There is definitely room to improve on both sides of the ball, but the effort put forth by the team tonight shows to prove that Rick Ray might just know what he’s doing with this team. The Bulldogs return to Humphrey Coliseum next Saturday to officially begin the 2014-2015 season against Western Carolina. Tipoff is at 5:30 PM on Friday, November 14, and can be seen on SEC Network +, which can be found online only.