Southern Miss
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Mississippi State
Southern Miss Falls to No. 22 Mississippi State
12/14/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - No. 22 Mississippi State (10-0) held Southern Miss (6-3) to the fewest points in a half (8) and its worst shooting performance (5.9 percent) in a half in defeating the Lady Eagles 73-46 Sunday afternoon.
"First off, you have to say hats off to a very good Mississippi State team," Head Coach Joye Lee-McNelis said. "We lost to them last year in double overtime in the WNIT, but that was with Jamierra Faulkner and that was before they added players. That just tells you how much better this Mississippi State team is.
"In our preparation this week, our concern was the physical and speed of the play, because they are so explosive, fast and they come at you in numbers," McNelis said. "We used six defenders in practice and tried very hard to mock that to be better prepared. I don't think our team was ready to handle that shock."
Junior Jerontay Clemons, the only Lady Eagle to score in double figures, led all scorers with a game-high 16 points. Kierra Jordan pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds. Tamara Jones came off the bench to score eight points and grab seven rebounds.
"As good as our defense was to start the game, we couldn't buy a bucket," said McNelis. "I think we were intimidate on getting to the rim or finishing a shot around the rim or even a 10-foot jumper when we would see maroon coming at us. I think defensively, again the first half was a good as you could play, it's just we couldn't score the ball offensively. Personally, I thought if we could have hit some early shots, our whole mentality changed."
The Lady Eagles hit just one first-half field goal and committed 21 turnovers that led to 19 points for the Bulldogs. The Lady Eagles missed their first 16 shots before Brooke Rhodes finally connect on a jumper in the paint at the 1:50 mark in the half. Mississippi State led 26-8 at the half.
Southern Miss improved its shooting percentage from the field in the second, hitting 13-of-31 for .41.9 percent and helping the Lady Eagles finish the game shooting 29.2 percent. State outscored Southern Miss 47-38 in the second half on 61.5 percent shooting to finish the game with 47.3 field goal percentage.
Southern Miss edged the Bulldogs on the boards, 38-33.
Breanna Richardson and Marth Alwal led Mississippi State with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Alwal also had a team-best five rebounds. The Bulldogs picked up 14 steals as Victoria Vivians, Dominique Dillingham and Richardson each had three.
Southern Miss will travel to Oxford, Miss., to play Ole Miss on Dec. 18. It's the first meeting between the two teams since 1999.
