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MSU Plays Second Game In Three Days Sunday Against North Texas
STARKVILLE,
Miss. – There’s little time to enjoy and celebrate Friday’s win, as No.
24 Mississippi State is back in action on Sunday against North Texas. Tip at Humphrey Coliseum is set for 1:30 p.m., and tickets can be purchased at a special price of just $5. The
Bulldogs (6-1) have won five in a row and are looking to start a season
7-1 for the first time since 2003-04, when they won the overall SEC
regular-season crown. Friday,
they picked up their latest victory with a convincing 76-50 win against
UT Martin, despite the absence of starting junior forwards Arnett
Moultrie and Renardo Sidney, who continue to nurse injuries. In that
outing, MSU shot a season-best 59.3 percent (32-54) from the floor and
were led in scoring by Dee Bost and Rodney Hood with 17 points each. Bost, the All-SEC standout, continues to lead MSU in scoring at 16.9 points. “We
shot nearly 70 percent in the second half, and we didn’t turn the ball
over that much in that half either,” MSU coach Rick Stansbury said.
“For the most part, I thought we played hard. That doesn’t mean we
always played good, but we played hard and that is all that you can ask
for.” North Texas enters the contest 1-2 following its 97-64 setback at Texas-Arlington on Wednesday. The
Mean Green is led in scoring by freshman standout guard Chris Jones’s
18.3 clip, the seventh highest total in the country by a freshman.
Earlier this year, he poured in 31 points against Big 12 foe Texas
Tech, the fifth highest total by a freshman in school history. North
Texas is the third Sun Belt Conference foe MSU has faced this year.
Already, the Bulldogs have defeated South Alabama (85-70) and
Louisiana-Monroe (78-63). In December, MSU also plays league members
Troy and Florida Atlantic. Sunday
marks the second meeting between the two schools, as the Bulldogs
claimed a 66-65 victory in December of 1972 at the Pacemaker Classic in
Monroe, La. After
Sunday, Mississippi State is off until Dec. 3, when it hosts West
Virginia at 8 p.m. on ESPNU in the Big East/SEC Challenge.
11 THINGS TO NOTE AS MSU PLAYS NORTH TEXAS 1-Mississippi State is looking for its fi rst 7-1 start since starting the 2003-04 campaign
13-0.
2-Rick Stansbury currently ranks 11th in the SEC with 278 wins, two behind Ray Mears
(Tennessee) and Roy Skinner (Vanderbilt) for the 9th most.
3-In just seven games this year, MSU has already used three different lineups.
4-Arnett Moultrie leads the SEC in rebounding with his 11.2 clip.
5-Rodney Hood currently has the sixth-best scoring average in school history for fresh-
men at 13.3. Rickey Brown (1976-77) is tops at 19.3. Hood’s 34.0 minutes is currently
fourth best.
6-Dee Bost is now just 40 assists shy of breaking the school record of 514 held by Derrick
Zimmerman (2000-03).
7-On Monday, MSU moved into the Associated Press Top 25 poll at No. 24, marking the
fi rst time since January of 2010 the Bulldogs have been ranked, when they were No.
23. The ranking lasted just that one week as MSU lost at Western Kentucky to drop out.
8-The Bulldogs have out-rebounded their opponents in all seven games this year and
have a rebounding margin of +7.2.
9-During its current fi ve-game winning streak, MSU has kept all fi ve opponents to 65
points or less and is yielding just 59.0 points during that stretch.
10- In the win against UT Martin on Friday, junior forward Wendell Lewis recorded his fi rst
double-double with a career highs in points (11) and rebounds (11).
11-The numbers don’t lie. When holding opponents to 65 points or less, MSU is now 5-0
on the year. The Bulldogs are also 4-0 when holding foes to less than 45 percent shoot-
ing from the floor, and they are 5-0 when committing fewer turnovers.
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