Tolu Smith's career day leads Bulldogs over Gators
STARKVILLE, Miss. – Mississippi State has earned plenty of praise this season for having one of the Southeastern Conference's best backcourt duos with Iverson Molinar and D.J. Stewart. Lest anyone forget, the Bulldog frontcourt is pretty strong as well and State's starting bigs flexed their collective muscle on Saturday to push MSU to a win over Florida.
The Bulldogs downed the Gators 72-69 at Humphrey Coliseum. A career day from forward Tolu Smith led the charge. He collected a double-double and set new career highs with 27 points and 14 rebounds. Meanwhile center Abdul Ado played strong defensively while collecting 11 points and nine boards.
"It was a really phenomenal night for those two bigs and I absolutely loved it," MSU head coach Ben Howland said of Smith and Ado.
On this day – as good as Ado was – he played the Robin to Smith's Batman.
"He really played the best game of his young career," Howland said of Smith. "I'm just so happy for him and proud of him."
Smith made 11 of his 13 shots from the field. He was equally good rebounding on the offensive and defensive ends with seven boards of each kind. Smith also had three blocks in what was an all-around dominant showing.
"I was just playing with confidence and playing as hard as I can," Smith said. "Coach emphasized playing as hard as we can to get this win. This one was a must-win. I just want to thank my coaches and my teammates for getting me the ball. I appreciate them."
Smith was the poster child for what made State (9-5, 4-2) successful Saturday. Behind Smith, the Bulldogs out-rebounded the Gators (6-4, 3-3) by 21. MSU also used Smith's production to outscore Florida 52-30 on points from the paint.
"We just got (Smith) the ball better today," Howland said. "He had seven offensive rebounds, so he got a bunch on his own. But we also did a better job feeding the post."
While Smith did most of the heavy lifting from an offensive standpoint, Ado was perhaps the defensive star of the day for State. Despite being sick all of Friday with what was determined to be a non-COVID-19 illness, Ado showed no signs of being under the weather on Saturday. In addition to his scoring and rebounding, Ado contained Florida star forward Colin Castleton. Castleton was held to 16 points. Castleton had scored 21 or more in three of his previous five games.
In earning the victory, Mississippi State also had to overcome Florida's press defense. Three days after Texas A&M charged back from a double-digit halftime deficit in large part because MSU couldn't figure out the Aggie press, the Bulldogs appeared to have learned from their previous mistakes.
"We went back to the drawing board (after the Texas A&M game)," Smith said. "Coach emphasized we need to be more aggressive against the press. Our guards did a great job (Saturday) at breaking the press and seeing the open guy."
Even as Smith and Ado shined and the Bulldogs overcame the Florida press, the Gators still had a chance late. State had a 10-point lead with under a minute to play but saw it cut to only three in the closing seconds. Florida had the ball with a chance to tie, however Tre Mann missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer for the Gators as the final buzzer was sounding.
"It's really hard to close out games in our league," Howland said.
But close it out MSU did. Now, the Bulldogs will try to make it two wins in a row when they host instate rival Ole Miss on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. central.
POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCES
MSU forward Tolu Smith
MSU center Abdul Ado
MSU head coach Ben Howland
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