Bulldogs come up short at Tennessee

Once again, Mississippi State played a nationally-ranked team on the road. Once again, MSU hung tough. However once again, the Bulldogs came up short.

State fell 56-53 to No. 18 Tennessee on Tuesday night on the Volunteers' home floor. It marked the Bulldogs' third straight loss and second straight on the road to a Top 25 team after also falling this past Saturday at Alabama. For MSU head coach Ben Howland, the latest defeat was due, in large part, to a few all-too-familiar flaws.

"With 18 turnovers, it's going to be hard to win anywhere on the road," Howland said. "Much less against a really good Tennessee team that's 11th in the (NCAA NET rankings). And we've got to shoot foul shots better to win. And we've got to make some shots. We missed a number of shots at the rim. And we've got to be able to finish better."

(CLICK HERE FOR FULL VIDEO OF BEN HOWLAND'S POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE)

Indeed all the things Howland mentioned have been consistent frustrations for State this season and those things kept plaguing the Bulldogs (9-8, 4-5) against the Volunteers (11-3, 5-3). The 18 MSU turnovers led to 23 Tennessee points. State left seven points at the free throw line as the team missed seven of 23 shots from the charity stripe. Overall, MSU shot just 33 percent from the field as a team leaving much to be desired there as well.

Despite it all, the Bulldogs had a chance to win. But again, as it did earlier in the year in losses to Kentucky and Texas A&M, the problem of finishing off games came up. MSU led by four points with under eight minutes to play but couldn't hold on.

The Bulldogs were hurt by their own play, but they were hampered by things outside their control as well. Down only two points with just over 2:30 left, MSU forced what television replays definitively showed to be a shot clock violation. A shot from Tennessee's Jaden Springer didn't leave his hand in time. The Bulldogs thought they were getting the basketball back with a chance to tie or take a lead. Yet officials didn't call it. Instead, Tennessee was able to collect an offensive rebound on the shot and Keon Johnson hit a layup for a four-point Volunteer lead.

So why wasn't the play reviewed? It couldn't be as there were more than two minutes left on the clock, thus replay review for such a play wasn't available at that point.

"And it wasn't out of his hand," Howland said. "That was a huge play...That's a big miss."

MSU guard Iverson Molinar agreed with his coach.

"We stopped playing because we thought the shot clock went off and we thought it was our ball," Molinar said. "We didn't continue to play. That's how they scored. Everybody makes mistakes. At the end of the day, we still had a couple of more plays where we had a chance to win."

The Bulldogs couldn't come through in the critical moments though and victory eluded them. Despite Molinar's team-high 16 points and 11 from D.J. Stewart, MSU once again in frustrating fashion found itself on the short end of things for the third contest in a row.

The Bulldogs will try to break their losing streak on Saturday when they play host to Iowa State in the SEC/Big 12 challenge. Tip off at Humphrey Coliseum is set for 5 p.m.

"We've just got to keep our head up and keep going because we still have a lot of games left," Molinar said.

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