Can Mississippi State basketball overcome the Nike ball against Ole Miss?

In one of the stranger turn of events for the Mississippi State basketball team in 2018-19, the Nike basketball has been the Bulldogs’ greatest enemy.

The Mississippi State basketball team will travel to The Pavilion in Oxford, MS on Saturday to take on the OIe Miss Rebels. The game will tip off at 2:30 p.m. on the SEC Network.

When the game tips, the Mississippi State team will be playing with a Nike basketball. Why is this noteworthy?

Some time after the Kentucky game and before the game against Alabama, guard Nick Weatherspoon was asked about how the Mississippi State basketball team will have games where they don’t shoot the ball well at all. Surprisingly, Nick Weatherspoon mentioned there have been times when the Bulldogs played with the Nike basketball and it was really slick.

This led Joel T. Coleman of the Starkville Daily News to do some research. This is what the beat writer discovered in his quest to determine how much different the Mississippi State basketball team shoots when they play with the Nike basketball versus the Wilson basketball they use during home games.

Some will say it’s just an excuse, or a basketball is a basketball and it shouldn’t matter. Well, when there is an almost 20% drop shooting one basketball to another, it’s hard to say it is just a coincidence and it shouldn’t matter.

This Mississippi State basketball team has struggled to shoot well when they have had to use the Nike basketball. Ole Miss and the rest of their road games will be played with a Nike basketball with the lone exception of Auburn. The Bulldogs are either going to have to find a way to adjust to the difference in basketballs or find other ways to score and beat your opponent.

And if you’re wondering, the Mississippi State basketball team does use Nike balls to practice with when they are preparing for a team that uses those basketballs. So far, it hasn’t made much a difference.

Now, the Bulldogs played with their Wilson ball against Ole Miss the first time and lost. It was one of the few games MSU shot poorly with a Wilson ball (the Bulldogs shot just 6-21 from three). Had they shot closer to what they average with a Wilson ball, the Bulldogs probably in that game very easily.

Is this truly a trend or just a coincidence? If the Bulldogs continue to struggle when they play with a Nike basketball in the rest of the games where it is used, and they continue to shoot really well when they play with a Wilson ball, it’s going to be really hard to argue that there isn’t something to it.