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Mississippi State basketball: Bulldogs inexplicably lose at home to Ole Miss

By Ethan Lee

DALLAS, TX - APRIL 02: The Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs mascot 'Bully XXI' looks on during warm ups prior to the game between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs during the championship game of the 2017 NCAA Women's Final Four at American Airlines Center on April 2, 2017 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
DALLAS, TX - APRIL 02: The Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs mascot 'Bully XXI' looks on during warm ups prior to the game between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs during the championship game of the 2017 NCAA Women's Final Four at American Airlines Center on April 2, 2017 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images) /
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The Mississippi State basketball team should have come out on top of this game. The Bulldogs had the talent and the depth necessary to take care of the Rebels, and this game was in the Hump. MSU still lost.

Ben Howland and his Mississippi State basketball team (12-3 overall, 0-2 SEC) had the right sort of conditions to be able to lock up a crucial victory over the Ole Miss Rebels (13-2 overall, 3-0 SEC).

MSU was at home, the Bulldogs have a team with plenty of juniors and seniors in the starting lineup, and State was in position to bounce back from an infuriating conference loss to South Carolina earlier in the week.

Things didn’t work out so well for MSU.

Beating the Rebels would have given the Bulldogs their first SEC win of the season while also helping to put Mississippi State on the better end of this rivalry. But, well, that didn’t happen and the Bulldogs lost 81-77 at home in the Hump.

MSU was able to hold a lead at halftime over Ole Miss, but poor three point shooting doomed the Bulldogs. The Rebels were able to routinely make their three point attempts, getting 38.7 percent of their shots from deep to fall, while Mississippi State got just 6 of their 21 attempts from behind the lone to go through.

The good news is that there’s still plenty of season left for Ben Howland to get this Mississippi State basketball team pulled together and working more efficiently than it has. The bad news is that the Bulldogs will have a significantly tougher time winning the SEC at this point. And, well, there’s still a lot of season to go.

If MSU doesn’t improve at all, then that’s not a good thing anymore.

All stats via HailState.com

dark. Next. Predicting the 2020 schedule

MSU was ranked pretty high coming into this game at No. 14, but expect that ranking to fall after this loss and the frustrating game against South Carolina.

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