Mississippi State women's basketball falls short in SEC opener against Vanderbilt Commodores
By Ethan Lee
The first SEC game of the 2023-2024 Mississippi State women's basketball season didn't exactly go according to plan. Sam Purcell's Mississippi State basketball team put up a strong effort on their home court Thursday evening, but the MSU Bulldogs ultimately fell short against the visiting Vanderbilt Commodores.
Despite the fact that the Bulldogs had a home court advantage and were backed by over 4,200 fans, the Mississippi State women's basketball team dropped their SEC opener against the Commodores by a score of 71-66.
Mississippi State's Jerkaila Jordan was the star of the show for the Bulldogs as she scored 21 points, dished out five assists, and recorded six steals.
But unfortunately for MSU, that wasn't enough to overcome the stellar showing from Iyana Moore, who scored a remarkable 29 points for the Commodores, causing all sorts of problems for the Bulldogs Thursday evening.
Mississippi State women's basketball: Bulldogs fall short against Vanderbilt Commodores in SEC opener
Vanderbilt's strong defense heavily limited everything the Bulldogs tried to do offensively. While MSU shot an okay, though slightly underwhelming 43.1 percent from the field, but State absolutely struggled in shooting from deep as the Bulldogs only hit 30 percent of their shots from deep.
On top of that, MSU had issues in the rebounding department. Jessika Carter managed to pull down 12 rebounds, but other than her dozen, State struggled and was outrebounded by a total of 35 to 28.
And with that, it shouldn't be a shocker that Vanderbilt thrived in second chance points while MSU simply couldn't get much going there. Vandy managed to get 15 second chance points while the Bulldogs only had five.
That's a substantial difference here.
The Bulldogs are now 13-3 on the season and are heading further into SEC play with an 0-1 conference record after their first SEC matchup. MSU will face off against the South Carolina Gamecocks on the road on Sunday, January 7 at 12 p.m.