Mississippi State Crushed by Alabama: Bulldogs Lose in 111-73 Blowout

Alabama 111, Mississippi State 73: 5 Key Takeaways

5. Alabama is pretty good at college basketball

The Crimson Tide might have lost to Auburn and Missouri, but it bounced back with a win over Kentucky.

And then came this.

Everything worked for Bama. The energy was there from the start, the offense rolled up points at will, and Mississippi State couldn’t buy a break to stall the momentum.

There’s nothing positive to take out of this. It was a horrible performance against an elite team on a late February Tuesday night on the road in the SEC.

Flush it, forget it, move on, but …

4. The Mississippi State three-point defense had a rough night

The Bulldog D from three is everything.

Alabama is No. 1 in the nation in scoring, it’s No. 1 in the SEC at jacking up threes, and it’s No. 1 in the most threes per game averaging over ten a night.

The Tide pumped in ten threes in the first half.

The Bama offense can put up points in bunches, and it can make a ton of threes, but 17 was the high-mark this year for made threes in SEC play and 19 was the biggest day of the season in a blowout win over South Dakota State.

No matter what Mississippi State did, Alabama couldn’t miss. The Tide jacked up 45 threes, made a ridiculous 22 of them, and the pain never stopped.

This was the wrong team to play on the wrong night. Mississippi State is now 2-9 when allowing ten or more threes, and unbeaten when allowing fewer.

3. Mississippi State got another good game out of Josh Hubbard

The Bulldog star struggled from three - like everyone else on the team - but he scored 21 points as one of the few bright spots.   

Part of the problem is that he’s built to score and crank up the production, but beating Alabama requires tempo, defense and keeping the score in check. He was brilliant in the first meeting with the Tide scoring 38 points, he tried to keep making things happen, and …

2. Once again, Mississippi State just can’t get into a firefight

It’s been a problem all season long. Mississippi State can’t handle teams with good offenses.

This makes the team 0-7 when allowing 84 points or more. But it’s more than that.

Go back to last year, and Mississippi State is 0-13 over the last two seasons when allowing 84 points or more. There were some strong defensive years when the Bulldogs didn’t allow much of anything, but add those seasons in, and Mississippi State is 0-20 since the 2019-2020 when getting hit with 84 points or more.

Who’s up next?

1. Mississippi State lost to Alabama (the final score doesn’t matter)

LSU has yet to score more than 82 points in conference play.

Texas scores 78.3 points per game and got past 84 points once - in a win over LSU.

The only time Texas A&M got past 84 points in the SEC was in a loss to Alabama.

This was a loss. It was a brutal, ugly loss in a game that was over instantly. It doesn’t matter if it was by three or 38 - it was a loss, and it won’t make a difference in a few weeks.

Mississippi State has the talent to hang around with the conference big guys, but the SEC Tournament is just a fun exhibition. The team is in place to make noise in the NCAA Tournament, and it’ll be in it.

On the right day Alabama is the best team in the country, and this was the right day. It was a horrible day, and it was embarrassing, but there’s a home game against LSU on March 1st.

Get right against the Tigers, and keep on moving.