We've reached crunch time for this college basketball season. Now is when you want teams to be playing their best as they gear up for March. It looked like Mississippi State was in the process of doing so after back-to-back wins over ranked opponents to lock up a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Then on Saturday, the Bulldogs showed they still aren't fully there yet, suffering a 93-87 loss to an Oklahoma team that had lost five-straight games and was just 3-10 in SEC play. It was a game the Sooners had to have if they were going to stay alive for the Big Dance, and they played like it while State never fully showed up.
Fans are, understandably, ticked-off after MSU's showing. But before anyone overreacts to the loss, it should be pointed out that the perception of losing to Oklahoma didn't match the reality.
Losing to Oklahoma didn't hurt Mississippi State basketball's NCAA Tournament resume
For as poorly as Oklahoma had been playing of late, this won't go down as a bad loss for Mississippi State. At #54 in the NET, this was a Quad 1 game for the Bulldogs. Quad 1 losses are never going to hurt your profile unless you're lacking quality wins, which State is not.
This was the type of game that only could have helped MSU's profile. And while you would prefer that they had picked up another Q1 road win to further strengthen their case and potentially improve their seeding, you're not going to see the Bulldogs make some significant drop in the projections. They'll be somewhere along the 5/6-seed line, basically where they were coming into today.
Now in terms of general momentum, sure, they lost some of that today. That's not ideal at this point in the season, especially when an incredibly difficult trip to Alabama is on-deck. But there's no reason they can't play a competitive game in Tuscaloosa and then pick up some steam the rest of the way, either.
At the end of the day, Mississippi State fell victim to a classic trap game. This was an obvious letdown spot going on the road after consecutive big wins to face a team in desperation mode. That's not to excuse them. It was still a bad performance that you expect them to avoid at this point in the season.
But sometimes those games happen. Oklahoma has shown this year that, at their best, they're capable of taking down legitimately good teams. Unfortunately for State, the Sooners, with their backs against the wall, found their best on Saturday.
This doesn't have to be a defining game for MSU, even at this point in the season. It can easily just be a blip on the radar. Flush the loss, regroup, and finish the regular season strong.