Howland and Co. Looking to Keep Tournament Hopes Alive Against Tennessee
After dropping their last game to Arkansas, MSU is still winless in true road games. However, they'll get the chance to pick up some real steam on Wednesday as they look to face off against the No. 19-ranked Tennessee Volunteers.
Tennessee is one of the hotter teams in the conference at the moment, rattling off five straight SEC wins.
"I think they're shooting really well," said Howland, "In their last two games in the conference they shot the ball from three close to 50%, and they make the most threes out of anyone in our conference."
Howland also mentioned that he thinks the Bulldogs match up much better with Tennessee than they did against the more physically imposing guard rotation of Arkansas.
One of the biggest keys to victory in the upcoming game, though, according to Howland, is getting his team out in transition. The Bulldogs were outscored by 10 points in transition in their last outing, and Howland knows that can't happen.
"We gave up too many fast-break opportunities. Our fast break defense wasn't up to snuff," said Howland, "and then we didn't get enough out of out fast breaks, especially finishing. We had a few finishes that we did not capitalize on that we needed to."
MSU is predicted by warrennolan.com to finish the season 18-13 at the moment. If that's the case, then it would take an impressive SEC tournament performance for the Bulldogs to insure a tournament bid. They're also picked to lose on Wednesday, though, so if they can pull out a win, it would greatly help their chances.
Tipoff is at 8 p.m. CT Wednesday night, with the game airing nationwide on ESPN2.
