Second-Half Surge Carries State To Victory
November 08, 2022 | Men's Basketball
STARKVILLE – Mississippi State went into the locker room at halftime Monday night trailing Texas A&M-Corpus Christi by five points.
It wasn't the opening half the Bulldogs nor their new coach Chris Jans envisioned or wanted. So when the second half started, Jans called out a play that senior forward D.J. Jeffries had been executing to perfection at practice.
That play gave Jeffries a good look from the top of the key and when his 3-pointer went through the net, the entire arena – save for the Islanders – took a collective sigh of relief. MSU carried that momentum into a 14-4 run to open the second half and cruised to a 63-44 victory.
"That (3-pointer) most definitely loosened everybody up and gave me some confidence because I only took one shot in the first half," Jeffries said. "I was just trying to get into the flow of the game. After that meeting at halftime, I just told them I was going to go out there and play hard and see what happens. That (3-pointer) opened the game up, gave us confidence and we got on a little run."
During that 14-4 run over the first 6:08 of the second half, Jeffries was responsible for seven of those points. The Bulldogs shot 48.4 percent overall in the second half with Dashawn Davis, Eric Reed Jr. and KeShawn Murphy all getting into the act behind the arc in their Bulldog debuts.
Tolu Smith topped State in scoring overall with 19 points and also added 11 rebounds for his 14th career double-double.
"There were definitely some nerves," Smith said. "We had a great crowd and there were some new players and it's a new team and a new environment. Some people on the team aren't used to the Hump so in the first half, everybody had some jitters. But in the second half, we had to let all that go and have the good game that we had."
Mississippi State's defense stifled the Islanders, holding them to only 21.4 percent shooting and 14 total points in the second half while also outrebounding them by nine. It is that type of defensive dominance Jans hopes can become a trademark for his team moving forward.
"That's why we rely on our defense, rebounding and energy because there will be nights where we'll struggle, everyone in the country will," Jans said. "When we do that, we have to rely on our defense to get us through the rough patches. That's what I thought we did, especially in the second half."
Jans also got all 15 players into the game with 13 different players taking shots and 10 finishing in the scoring column. Shakeel Moore scored 11 points and chipped in three steals in 18 minutes off the bench while Murphy, Kimani Hamilton, Martavious Russell and Shawn Jones Jr. made their collegiate debuts.
