Mississippi State
Southern Miss
State Gets Real-Game Feel In Exhibition Win At Southern Miss
October 29, 2023 | Men's Basketball, Joel Coleman
Bulldogs shoot well from deep and play solid defense to top Golden Eagles.
HATTIESBURG, Miss. – The stats won't be counted. The score won't be factored into any postseason resumes. The victory won't go down in the record books. But make no mistake about it, Sunday might turn out to have been a critically important day for Mississippi State's 2023-24 men's basketball campaign.
MSU earned a 60-54 road win over Southern Miss in exhibition action at the Golden Eagles' Reed Green Coliseum. And while the game was in reality a glorified practice, head coach Chris Jans and his Bulldogs certainly experienced a contest that felt like so much more.
"The great thing about today was it felt like a game that's going to matter in the win-loss column," Jans said. "The Bulldogs coming into Southern Miss was obviously a big deal, and that's why we accepted the challenge."
Challenge accepted. Mission accomplished. And State discovered plenty about itself that it has to like with the regular season now just over a week away.
There was Josh Hubbard already playing the role of hero. The standout freshman guard's clutch 3-pointer with only 1:30 left in the game – when he dribbled to his right around a defender before firing from the right wing – stretched his team's lead to six and all but put things away. The contest remained a two-possession game for the remainder of the action.
"It's always been a comfortable shot for me since high school," Hubbard said of his dagger. "I work on it in practice a lot. Coach Jans believes in me and gives me the freedom to shoot that shot. The shot clock was winding down, and I took it."
He took it, he made it and it wasn't a surprise at all to Jans.
"He doesn't play like a freshman," Jans said of Hubbard. "It's pretty easy to see he's got a calm, cool demeanor about him. It's a luxury for us to have him. He can really shoot the basketball. He's certainly got a lot to learn. He made a couple of mistakes down the stretch, but that's why you play in these games – to put these guys in those situations."
Hubbard finished with a team-high 13 points. He was 3-for-6 from beyond the arc, spearheading a strong showing by the Dawgs from long range.
State made eight of its 21 3-pointers. That's a 38.1 percent shooting percentage – or nearly a whopping 12 points higher than what MSU's season percentage was from deep a year ago.
D.J. Jeffries sank a pair of treys of his own, on the way to an 11-point effort. Fellow State veteran Cameron Matthews scored nine, and also contributed his customary strong defense with six rebounds, four steals and a block.
Matthews led the Dawgs defensively, but the Maroon and White was tough as a group on that end of the floor throughout. No surprise for a unit under the direction of "The Dentist".
USM shot at only a 30-percent clip against State. Even so, the Golden Eagles did enough to prevent the Bulldogs from running away – something that Jans believes will ultimately be beneficial for his bunch.
State saw a first-half, nine-point lead shrink to 31-27 by the intermission. Then, in the second period, Southern Miss came out of the locker room on a 7-1 run to take a 34-32 advantage.
In the end though, the Bulldogs were just too much for the Golden Eagles. State built itself a 52-42 edge with 3:53 remaining. However, it took Hubbard's hot hand to completely hold off MSU's instate foe.
"It felt like a [real] game – especially when [USM] went on a couple of runs," Jans said. "You could hear the crowd. Tried to let [our team] play through it and not bail them out with a timeout in those situations, and I thought our guys handled it pretty well."
The Dawgs handled it well and learned lessons they'll be remembering in the months to come.
It was a successful day on many fronts. Money was raised off of ticket sales to the game to financially assist tornado victims in the Mississippi Delta – so the biggest winner of Sunday was in actuality the Magnolia State as a whole.
But in helping those in need off the court, the Bulldogs also got better as a team on it. They're thankful for that, too.
"It was very important," forward Jaquan Scott said after finishing Sunday just shy of a double-double with nine points and nine boards. "There'll be many more close games over the course of the season, and this was just a taste of it."
