Weight lifted: MSU shakes off sluggish start to overwhelm Florida
Perhaps the Tennessee win from Sunday created a bit of a hangover for No. 2 Mississippi State on Thursday because it wasn’t sharp out of the gates against Florida.
Leading 22-20 in the second quarter, that hangover wore off. The Bulldogs went on to outscore the Gators 68-33 over the final two and a half quarters and got 23 points from Teaira McCowan to blow by the Gators 90-53.
The win made for 21 in a row for the Bulldogs to start the season now breaking the school record for best start two years in a row.
“It’s extremely hard to do what they’re doing,” MSU head coach Vic Schaefer said. “I think earlier (Thursday) there was a little weight on their shoulders to set the consecutive wins record. It’s behind us. We can just focus on playing now.”
McCowan scored her 1,000th point of her Bulldog career on Thursday notching those 23 points on 9-of-13 from the field and 15 of those points came in a big third quarter when State pushed the lead out.
Victoria Vivians had 17 points in the game and Blair Schaefer added 15 with a career-high tying five 3-pointers.
The Bulldogs found their footing in the game midway through the first half. To that point they had been a bit sluggish.
It was a 22-20 lead with under 5 minutes remaining in the half when the teams went to the bench for a timeout. MSU was on a scoring drought that neared 4 minutes. The Bulldogs came out of the huddle charged up, however.
What followed was a 13-0 run that led to a 35-23 margin at the half. MSU never looked back from there.
“In the huddle, I told the players that we needed to go get a bucket,” Vivians said. “In past years, we would have gone back and forth, but we slowed down and got some good shots.”
The lead was pushed out for good in the third quarter when MSU outscored the Gators 31-14 led by McCowan. It was 66-37 going into the final quarter and State’s lead was safe.
“Coming out of halftime, coach told me to go to work," McCowan said. "That’s what I did,” McCowan said.
A game after winning the rebounding game against a bigger Tennessee team on the road, the Bulldogs were beaten in that category on Thursday. Florida won the battle of the boards 37-32 and held McCowan to seven rebounds. That was the only advantage the Gators had.
“I’m pleased with what we did tonight defensively from a pressure stand point,” coach Schaefer said. “I’m really disappointed in our rebounding effort after what we just did at Tennessee. We didn’t do a good job at times rebounding the ball.”
State forced Florida into 23 turnovers and converted those to 16 second chance points.
Offensively, the Bulldogs shot 54 percent for the game hitting seven 3-pointers. They had 18 assists and seven turnovers in the game.
MSU is searching for 22-straight wins on Sunday when it travels to Oxford to take on rival Ole Miss. Game time at The Pavilion is 1 p.m. as the Bulldogs try for nine-consecutive victories in the rivalry.
