No. 22 Men’s Hoops Drops 76-55 Decision at No. 8 Kentucky

Tuesday, January 22

Lexington, Ky.

6:00 PM

Mississippi State

14-4 (2-3SEC)

#8 Kentucky

15-3 (5-1SEC)

Mississippi State

Kentucky

No. 22 Men’s Hoops Drops 76-55 Decision at No. 8 Kentucky

January 22, 2019 | Men's Basketball

Box Score Press Conference Box Score (PDF)Quotes (PDF)

by Caleb Garner, Graduate Assistant/Communications

LEXINGTON, Kentucky – A tough shooting night was difficult to overcome for No. 22 Mississippi State as the Bulldogs were handed a 76-55 defeat by No. 8 Kentucky on Tuesday night at Rupp Arena.

Mississippi State (14-4, 2-3 SEC) was limited to season-lows of 19 field goals made and a 31.1 shooting percentage. The Wildcats (15-3, 5-1 SEC) bookended the game with an 18-2 run early during the first half and closed the contest with 27 of the game's last 39 points.

Kentucky captured its 12th consecutive victory in the series dating back to the 2008-09 season. A key stat for the Wildcats was an 8-for-16 effort from three-point territory compared to a 3-of-20 mark for MSU.

Quinndary Weatherspoon dropped in 11 of his team-leading 19 points during the second half and grabbed five rebounds, while Tyson Carter tacked on 11 points and two steals off the bench.

Reggie Perry and Nick Weatherspoon collected eight points apiece. Perry hauled down eight rebounds whereas Weatherspoon handed out a pair of assists.

Robert Woodard II cleaned the glass with a career-best 13 rebounds, the most for a MSU player in a single game this season. Lamar Peters came away with five points, three assists and two steals. The Bulldogs edged out Kentucky by a 20-18 margin in bench points.

Aric Holman and Abdul Ado were held scoreless and attempted just two shots. Holman garnered two blocks to move past Kalpatrick Wells (1980-81-82-83) for the No. 4 spot on the program's all-time list.

FROM THE BENCH WITH COACH HOWLAND
"I thought Kentucky was really impressive tonight. Facing them here, I liked their defense in particular, they really caused us a lot of problems. They forced us nine turnovers in the first half, although two or three of those were ones where we shot our self in the foot. I thought they had us playing fast and had us playing to where we were in a hurry rather than being in control offensively in the first half. We were probably fortunate to only be down eight, and I thought we did a great job battling back. It was 41-39, and they called a timeout. We had some momentum at that point. Right away, they came out and really executed well on both ends of the floor. We were in about six or seven minute stretch where we were scored four points. We really struggled tonight offensively and give them credit with their defense."

"I thought they really pressured us, and we didn't handle that pressure very well. We should be able to handle that better than we did. I thought in the first half we were penetrating, which was what we needed to do. They were so spaced out. We have to attack the basket. We were getting in there and not jump stopping. We were getting sped up. You have to stop and slow down. We missed a number of opportunities to kick out to open shots. We took some bad shots early in the game. It was reflective in our shooting percentage, our lack of assists. We need to do a better job executing. We need to learn from this experience."

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
The Bulldogs scored the opening four points of the game courtesy of a Nick Weatherspoon midrange jumper followed by a Quinndary Weatherspoon steal and transition dunk.

Kentucky turned the tables with 18 of the next 20 points to go ahead 18-6 at the 14:00 mark. The Wildcats dialed up a trio of three-pointers, two from Tyler Herro and one from PJ Washington.

Mississippi State crept back to 28-22 with 5:46 remaining. Tyson Carter and Quinndary Weatherspoon were opportunistic and followed their initial miss with a tipin buckets off of offensive rebounds. The Wildcats would take a 34-26 advantage into the locker room.
Mississippi State would find its groove out of the halftime break and ripped off 13 of opening 20 points of the second half.

The Bulldogs were able to get out in transition, and Quinndary Weatherspoon did the heavy lifting with nine of the 13 points during the spurt.

Weatherspoon converted on an old school three-point play, and an Abdul Ado block on defensive turned into another Weatherspoon layup. The two plays were 32 seconds apart and brought the tally to 41-39 with 13:39 to go.

From there, Kentucky was able to regroup out of a timeout. The Wildcats scored four points at the free throw line sandwiched between an Ashton Hagans midrange jumper and a Nick Richards dunk to make it 49-41 at the 11:09 mark.

UK kept its foot on the accelerator and back-to-back triples from Immanuel Quickley and Washington on consecutive possessions would extend the margin to 57-43 with 7:33 left.

The 21-point margin of defeat was the largest on the season for the Bulldogs who had lost their first three games by a combined 14 points.

For the contest, the Bulldogs hit 19-of-61 shots from the field (31.1 percent), 3-of-20 shots from three-point range (15.0 percent) and 14-of-18 shots from the foul line (77.8 percent).

The Wildcats countered with 26-of-59 shots from the field (44.1 percent), 8-of-16 shots from 3-point range (50.0 percent) and 16-of-22 shots from the foul line (72.7 percent).

Kentucky held a 43-36 rebounding advantage. The Bulldogs had five assists and 15 turnovers, while the Wildcats had 14 assists and 16 turnovers.

UK received a game-leading 21 points and four blocks from Washington and 18 points from Herro. Reid Travis secured a team-high 12 rebounds, while Hagans distributed a game-best nine assists for the Wildcats.

UP NEXT
The Bulldogs are in the midst of a five-game stretch with four games on the road and will play their lone home contest when No. 16 Auburn visits Humphrey Coliseum on Saturday. Tip time is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT. The game will be televised by SEC Network and available online through the WatchESPN platform.

Visit www.HailState.com for the latest news and information on the men's basketball program. Fans also can follow the program on its social media outlets by searching 'HailStateMBK' on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.