SEC Tournament ends quickly for MSU as Bulldogs fall to Tigers
Mississippi State had become a staple of the Southeastern Conference Tournament championship game for the last half decade, but the league title contest won't feature the Bulldogs in 2021. That's because MSU has gone one-and-done in the conference's yearly event.
State fell 71-62 to LSU on Thursday. After at least getting to the last game of the SEC Tourney every year since 2016, the Bulldogs are now forced to simply watch the final and the two days leading up to it as their NCAA Tournament lives have also now very much come into question.
“Obviously we were disappointed,” MSU head coach Nikki McCray-Penson said. “We felt like this was a game that we could win but they made some adjustments and we made some adjustments. We came up on the short end of the stick but I told (the team) that we’re going to keep working.”
The question becomes what are the Bulldogs now working towards? Projections coming into Thursday had MSU in the NCAA Tournament field. Now though, hovering just above .500 at 10-9 and with a losing SEC record, it seems safe to say the Bulldogs are very much on the bubble. McCray-Penson feels her team is indeed worthy of being in this year's big dance though.
"We do have some quality wins," McCray-Penson said when asked if she thought MSU was an NCAA Tournament-caliber team. "The fact that we had such a long break (due to weather issues and COVID-related circumstances at other prgrams)...I’m hoping that the committee will take that into consideration."
Of course State could be comfortably in the NCAA mix had the Bulldogs only won a game or two this week. LSU (9-12) didn't allow it. The Tigers essentially won the game at the free-throw line, getting to the charity stripe for 26 shots and making 19 of them.
“We weren't disciplined letting them get to the free throw line,” McCray-Penson said. “For two days, we worked on angles in practice and our closeouts. That was one of our keys. Our closeouts had to be really great. Some were, and some were not. We fouled them too much. They hit some threes. I told our team that everybody at this tournament wants to win. It's not just about wanting to win. You have to do the things that it's going to take to win. We just lost it from that standpoint.”
Ryann Payne led LSU with 17 points. For the Bulldogs, Rickea Jackson and Jessika Carter both finished with 14 points to set the pace for State.
MSU actually led 15-13 after the first quarter. However the Tigers out-scored the Bulldogs 40-28 over the next two periods to turn the game around.
It all left State shaking its collective head and heading back to Starkville after a short stay in the SEC Tournament. MSU can only hope it has done enough to get another shot in the NCAA's big event later this month. For their part, the Bulldogs are planning on having more important games in the not-too-distant future.
"We’ll have a break to regroup and get our bodies right and continue to work,” McCray-Penson said.
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