After Big Wins, Mississippi State Stumbles in Loss to Missouri

Mississippi State’s defense gave up 88 points as Missouri capitalized late, handing the Bulldogs a costly home loss Sunday.

Mississippi State Head Coach Sam Purcell during the game between the Tennessee Lady Volunteers and the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Thompson–Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville, TN. | Mississippi State Athletics

Sunday’s game for Mississippi State women’s basketball against Missouri had all the markings of a possible trap game.

The Bulldogs were coming off another win against a top 15 opponent. The Tigers had the week off to prepare solely for the Bulldogs, who have an upcoming game against No. 2 South Carolina.

The final score Sunday even had the result of a trap game, 88-80 in favor of Missouri. But the Bulldogs didn’t play bad like what happens in trap games. They just ran into a team that was shooting above 70 percent for most of the first half.

“Obviously they're coming off a bye week and are well rested,” Mississippi State coach Sam Purcell said. “This is what we talked about at Tennessee. Give a lot of credit to them. We watched film of how they jumped Texas, we've seen this behavior out of them. Also they get a win before us, they've got a little energy and juice about them. And they just took advantage of the moment.”

That moment came in the final minutes of the game. Mississippi State held a one point lead after an 8-0 run with three minutes to go, but made just one field goal before the final buzzer sounded.

“The place erupts again,” Purcell said about Humphrey Coliseum when Kharyssa Richardson made layup. “It's like the Kentucky shot where she hit one. She knows she has my confidence, we had the right players taking shots. You can play Monday quarterback, say pull it out and we should have run a set. They were clogging the paint and making it ugly. So, we thought transition would be our best way to get easy shots and rhythm shots. And it just didn't go in.”

Coming off of two wins against Kentucky and Tennessee in the last three games showed how good Mississippi State can be. But a loss like the one to the Tigers lessens that hard work.

“Extremely frustrating. That's where it's my job as head coach to paint a picture. It's to give the elevator speech, understand that we have to finish,” Purcell said. “Like I said after Tennessee game, that can't be the highlight of our season. We've got to stay hungry, we've got to get better, and we've got to be consistent.

“That's the thing that is so frustrating, we've worked so hard on our defense and multiple layers. To give up 88 points is a tough pill to swallow.”

Mississippi State will have to fix those defensive woes quickly. The Bulldogs are set to travel to No. 2 South Carolina on Thursday.