Mississippi State
Delta State (Exh.)
Bulldogs Dominate Delta State In Exhibition Play
November 07, 2014 | Men's Basketball
STARKVILLE, Miss. – Mississippi State's fast start carried the Bulldogs to a 72-51 exhibition victory in a men's basketball game played at Humphrey Coliseum Thursday night.
“That is what we harp on every day in practice,” MSU junior Fred Thomas said. “We work on defense every day, because we know the offense will come. We got some 10-second calls, shot clock violations. The ball was going everywhere. Our defensive intensity was really good to start the game.”
Gavin Ware led MSU with 19 points on a 9 of 13 night from the field. Demetrius Houston added 12 points in his Maroon and White debut, while Fallou Ndoye added 11 points in his first live action.
“The pressure is off of me this year,” MSU junior Gavin Ware said. “It's my job to help Oliver (Black) and Fallou (Ndoye) to make sure they are in the right places. We have a deeper team this year, so we can go harder.”
MSU held its Division II opponent to one field goal the first eight minutes. During that stretch, Ware was already establishing his presence inside and the Bulldogs were quickly building an 18-2 advantage.
MSU shot 48.1 percent from the floor and led 37-16 at the intermission.
“With more bodies to go around, we have a little more relief this year,” Ware said. “There are no more excuses for this team. The days of like six scholarship players are over. You could smell the hot dogs and popcorn so you could tell it was game time again. We just let it roll.”
Beginning his third season at MSU, Rick Ray was pleased with his team's defensive intensity. He also saw positive results from full-court pressure applied throughout the contest.
“I thought the guys came out with a great defensive intensity in the first half and that carried over to the offensive end,” Ray said. “It was good to be able to go out there and play against an opponent. In the second half they shot 47.8 percent. We really can't have that. We have to keep up our defensive intensity for an entire game.
“That is what happens with young guys. Sometimes, they lose focus when they get a big lead.”
For the contest, MSU hit 26 of 59 shots from the field (44.1 percent), 2 of 8 shots from 3-point range (25.0 percent) and 18 of 24 shots from the foul line (75.0 percent). Delta State hit 17 of 46 shots from the field (37.0 percent), 7 of 17 shots from 3-point range (41.2 percent) and 10 of 18 shots from the foul line (55.6 percent).
MSU held a 38-34 rebounding advantage. The Bulldogs had 15 assists and 12 turnovers, while the Statesmen had nine assists and 25 turnovers.
Delta State received 25 points from Devin Schmidt and 11 points from Jack Magden.
MSU will open the regular season with a 5:30 p.m. start Nov. 14 against Western Carolina in the Humphrey Coliseum.
