Mississippi State
12-14, 5-8
Ole Miss
18-8, 9-4
Sword Totals 19 Points, But Ole Miss Rallies For The Win
February 20, 2015 | Men's Basketball
STARKVILLE, Miss. – Craig Sword totaled a team-high 19 points but it wasn't enough as Ole Miss rallied to claim a 71-65 win Thursday at Humphrey Coliseum.
MSU held a 10-point lead at 26-16 with 8:22 left in the first half. The Bulldogs still led 32-27 at halftime. The lead switched hands several times in the second half before Ole Miss ended the game with a 10-5 run and hit four free throws in the final 14 seconds of play.
MSU slipped to 12-14 overall and 5-8 in league play, while Ole Miss improved to 18-8 and 9-4. Ole Miss won in this arena for the first time since the 2008-09 season and completed a season sweep for the first time since the 1997-98 season.
“Ole Miss did a really great job in the second half,” MSU coach Rick Ray said. “They scored 44 points in the second half. We didn't do a good job of following the game plan against Stefan Moody. When the ball was up in the second half, they out-toughed us for some rebounds.”
In addition to Sword's 19 points, Gavin Ware added 13 points, while Travis Daniels added 12 points. Ware and Daniels each had a team-high six rebounds.
Ole Miss received 29 points from Moody on an 8-of-16 night from the field. Moody hit 8-of-12 3-point shots, while scoring 23 points in the second half.
The Bulldogs rode the momentum of a season-best crowd of 7,873 to a fast start.
MSU built an early 13-7 lead on a layup by I.J. Ready and 3-point basket by Fred Thomas. The Bulldogs stretched the lead to eight points on a 3-pointer by Craig Sword and 10 points on an old-fashioned 3-point play by Travis Daniels.
Ole Miss took advantage of a six-minute scoring draught to score eight straight points to close within 26-24. Back-to-back baskets by Sword and Daniels pushed the lead back to 32-27 at halftime.
Back-to-back 3-pointers helped Ole Miss start the second half with an 8-0 run. The lead grew to eight at 44-36 on a Moody 3-pointer with 13:56 left.
Down 51-43, the Bulldogs responded with an 11-1 run to take a 54-52 lead with 6:25 left on two free throws by Ware.
Ole Miss had the answer as Moody responded with three straight 3-point baskets. The final of those treys put the Rebels on top 61-57 with 4:46 left.
The Bulldogs were back within one point on two more occasions but could not gain another lead.
For the contest, MSU hit 22 of 48 shots from the field (45.8 percent), 5 of 19 shots from 3-point range (26.3 percent) and 16 of 22 shots from the foul line (72.7 percent). Ole Miss hit 26 of 60 shots from the field (43.3 percent), 12 of 29 shots from 3-point range (41.4 percent) and 7 of 11 shots from the foul line (63.6 percent).
MSU held a 35-30 rebounding advantage. The Bulldogs had nine assists and 13 turnovers, while the Rebels had 13 assists and six turnovers.
MSU resumes a three-game home stand by playing host to Arkansas Saturday. The Bulldogs and Razorbacks meet at 3 p.m. in the Humphrey Coliseum with Fox Sports Net South handling the regional broadcast.
