Are Mississippi State men turning a corner before SEC play?

Mississippi State men’s basketball heads into Christmas break with confidence building before SEC play.

The Mississippi State Bulldogs during the game between the Memphis Tigers and the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville, MS. | Mississippi State Athletics

The Christmas break most college basketball teams are taking this week is a good time for everyone to take a step back and take stock of the season, so far.

For Mississippi State, that process is probably more enjoyable for the women’s team than it is the men’s team.

Mississippi State women are 12-1 and on an eight-game win streak headed into their Christmas break. The men’s team is 7-5, but will head into the break with some positive vibes thanks to a three-game win streak.

Let’s take a look at each team and where they stand. We’ve already covered the women’s team, now we’ll take a look at the men’s team.

Big Picture

If the NCAA Tournament field was set today, the Bulldogs wouldn’t be in it.

Mississippi State currently ranks No. 124 in the NCAA Men’s Basketball NET Rankings, which puts it among the likes of Western Kentucky, Marshall, Idaho State and Arkansas State.

Here’s the Bulldogs’ NET ranking breakdown:

• Overall: 7-5
• Road: 1-0
• Neutral: 1-4
• Home: 5-1
• Q1: 0-1
• Q2: 0-3
• Q3: 3-1
• Q4: 4-0

Schedule

Compared to its women counterpart, Mississippi State has played a tough schedule (that’ll only get tougher once SEC play begins) and it shows in the overall record.

The Bulldogs lost by 16 points to the only ranked team they’ve faced, Iowa State (then-No. 16, now-No. 4). They also have losses to Kansas State, New Mexico, SMU (in OT), and San Francisco.

That last loss is the most hurtful because it was a quadrant 3 game (see list above). The bright side is that Mississippi State has won all three games since that loss in Tupelo, which includes wins against Utah and Memphis.

The Bulldogs have just one more non-conference game before beginning SEC play and the toughest part of their schedule.

Player Highlights

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Josh Hubbard is Mississippi State’s leading scorer with 21.3 points per game. That’s the 15th highest average in the nation. He’s also averaging 2.6 rebounds per game, 3.8 assists per game while posting a .418 field goal percentage and .351 from three-point range.

Jayden Epps is second in scoring with 16.9 ppg and is making 48.8 percent of his field goals.

The problem for Mississippi State is that those are the only two scorers averaging more than 10 ppg. Ja’Borri McGhee is closer with 9.8 ppg and Quincy Ballard and Shawn Jones Jr. each have 6.8 ppg.

However, as coach Chris Jans said last week before beating Memphis, the Bulldogs need more of everything.

“It’s not about scoring points,” Jans said. “It's about everything else. That's what we need is more of everything else from a couple more guys to give us more consistency, to give us more quality depth, to show us this is what our rotation should look like.”

Next up

Mississippi State’s final game before opening SEC play against Texas on January 3. The Bulldogs will host Alabama State on Monday at 6:30 p.m. The game will air on SECN+.