Mississippi State Basketball vs. Arkansas: Highlights, final score, and analysis

Feb 11, 2023; Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs forward Tolu Smith (1) celebrates after scoring against the Arkansas Razorbacks during the second half at Bud Walton Arena. Bulldogs won 70-64. Mandatory Credit: Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 11, 2023; Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs forward Tolu Smith (1) celebrates after scoring against the Arkansas Razorbacks during the second half at Bud Walton Arena. Bulldogs won 70-64. Mandatory Credit: Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Mississippi State basketball team defeated the Arkansas Razorbacks, 70-64, in a huge momentum shifter for the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

The Mississippi State basketball team took control of this game from the tip-off. After leading in the first half, the Mississippi State Bulldogs never lost the lead in the second half and came away with a huge SEC basketball win.

Here are my early post-game thoughts:

The Mississippi State basketball team is on a hot, five-game winning streak.

Mississippi State Basketball has upset (No. 11 at the time) TCU, the South Carolina Gamecocks in a game they should have won, added another upset win over the Missouri Tigers, handily beat the LSU Tigers, and now pulled off another upset on the road in Fayetteville, Arkansas to make it five straight wins for the Bulldogs. Watch out basketball fans. The Dawgs are coming.

After starting SEC play 1-7, this is a massive momentum booster for Chris Jans and the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

Defense is truly winning ball games.

First-year head coach, Chris Jans, has preached that he focuses on defense first. Well, it is starting to pay off. The Bulldogs have held their opponents, in the last four games, to under 64 points in regulation.

Now that the Mississippi State basketball team has started to figure out how to score when they need to, the Bulldogs look more and more like an NCAA tournament team.

Wednesday’s game vs. the Kentucky Wildcats might be the biggest game left on the schedule.

When I began to look over the remaining games on Mississippi State’s basketball schedule, I noticed that most of these games favor the Bulldogs. That makes Wednesday night’s matchup vs. the Kentucky Wildcats that much more important. After Kentucky, the Bulldogs will play Ole Miss, Missouri, Texas A&M, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt. In these last six games of the 2022-2023 regular season, I expect the Bulldogs to be favored in four of them. Let’s go on a run, Dawgs.