Mississippi State women's basketball did what they needed to in a must-win game at Auburn to close the regular season. A sloppy start resulted in the Bulldogs trailing 31-24 at the break. But in the second half, they got a much better effort, taking control to pull out a 73-66 win. Mississippi State enters postseason play with a 20-10 record, 7-9 in the SEC.
Eniya Russell gave the Bulldogs the type of performance they need from her
Eniya Russell can be an X-factor type player for the Bulldogs with her athleticism and scoring ability, but she'd been in the midst of a rough patch for several weeks. Against Auburn, she had the type of game you want to see from her consistently.
Russell led State with 19 points on 7-12 shooting and 5-6 from the free throw line. Most importantly, she only turned the ball over once, which has been an issue for her. When she's acting as a lead bucket-getter and protecting the ball, she elevates this team.
Mississippi State's own miscues kept Auburn in the game
As you'd expect in a game where one team is significantly better than the other, the better team making mistakes is what allowed the lesser team to have a chance. Purely from a shooting standpoint, there's no reason this should have been close. State shot 49% to Auburn's 35%. They were 35% from three to Auburn's 21%. They made more free throws and even won the rebounding battle overall.
But as is often the case with this State team, turnovers were killer. While Russell protected the ball, her teammates did not. MSU turned it over 23 times, leading to 20 Tiger points. They also gave up 15 offensive rebounds resulting in 17 second chance points for Auburn. All year, it's been the little things with the Bulldogs, and they've got to get that cleaned up for the postseason.
Mississippi State goes to the SEC Women's Basketball Tournament close to locking themselves into March Madness
As I laid out a few days ago, the clearest path for Mississippi State to return to the NCAA Tournament was to beat Auburn and get one more win in the SEC Tournament. They've completed step one of that equation.
Now the Bulldogs, situated on the bubble, must avoid a tanking loss in crunch time. They're the 10-seed in the SEC Tournament and will play 15-seed Missouri on Wednesday. They've already lost to the Tigers once, and losing to them again would be significantly worse for their resume. But a win over Mizzou, which would guarantee no more bad losses, should lock them into March Madness.