Mississippi State stumbles at Georgia

In what could have been seen as an elimination game for the NCAA tournament, Miss St. got run out of the building. Georgia was 12-of-19 from the 3 point line on the game and had a 57.9 FG%. Anytime a team has that kind of shooting night put up against them, they are going to be in big trouble. So, was the cause poor defense or was Georgia just on fire on Saturday? Like most questions of this kind, the answer is both. State's defense didn't play at the level we are used to seeing. Georgia got more open looks than they should have, but even when they had a man in their face, the shots were still going down.

Only one player for MSU really played well and that was Reginald Delk. He led all scorers with 22 on 8-12 shooting and 6-9 from beyond the arc. Richard Delk had a solid game defensively but was basically non-existent on the offensive end. Everyone else was mediocre to bad on this day. Dietric Slater scored 18 and had 8 rebounds. This looks like a great day at first glance, but then you might notice he took 20 shots. I'm sorry, but there is no way that Slater should ever have 20 FG attempts in a game. Reginald Delk and Jamont Gordon combined only had 24 attempts. Slater is good for the putback or open layup, otherwise he should not be shooting the ball. Those FG attempts need to be going to more capable scorers. Gordon was more or less shut down, being held to 8 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists. Rhodes was even worse, scoring 7 points and pulling in just 2 rebounds. Oh my. Couple Georgia's hot shooting with mediocre play from almost every MSU player and you end up with the 86-73 loss.

I would think this ends the slim chance Miss St. had for an at-large bid into the tournament. It's doubtful that anything short of a SEC tourny title will do the trick now. We'll see though, things can change. The silver lining to all this is that Ole Miss and Alabama both lost on Saturday as well, which means Mississippi State is still tied for first in the West. While this doesn't hold much meaning as far as the NCAA's are concerned, it is still important to get a good seed in the SEC tournament. The Bulldogs travel to Arkansas tonight for a game that will be broadcast by Lincoln-Financial at 8:00 ET. If I understand the tie-break procedures, if MSU wins their final two games they will win the West, regardless of what Ole Miss and Alabama do. So tonight is still a pretty important game.