Starkville - The #25 Mississippi State Bulldogs improved to 6-0 on the season Wednesday, using a balanced attack to defeated Nicholls State 74-61.
Freshman Josh Hubbard led the Bulldogs with 15 points off the bench, making an early case for SEC 6th Man of the Year. The 5-foot-10 point guard is averaging 16.2 points per game on the young season, and was and continued to be a key piece of the Bulldog offense on Friday making 4/9 field goals and 6/7 free throws.
West Virginia graduate Jimmy Bell dominated the glass for the Bulldogs once again, hauling in ten rebounds to go with 11 points for his third double-double of the season. Bell, starting in place of the injured Tolu Smith, helped the Bulldogs outrebound the Colonels 48-29, and hauled in five offensive rebounds for a Bulldog team that brought down 19 of their own misses and scored 20 second chance points.
"You like to have that as a strength of yours. I've had some really good offensive rebounding teams and we'll see if this one develops into that," head coach Chris Jans said. "We thought going into the game, just look at the size difference, that had to be an advantage for us. We were preaching it for two days."
Defensively, the Bulldogs held Nicholls State to 38.9% from the field and created 15 turnovers. Forward Jamal West led the Colonels with 17 points and 13 rebounds, while guard Byron Ireland was the only player in double figures with ten points off the bench.
Mississippi State took advantage of Nicholls' lack of size, energizing the crowd with seven dunks. Cameron Matthews accounted for four of them on his way to 12 points on a perfect 6/6 from the floor, and he padded the stat sheet as he always does with seven rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block.
"You go back decades and decades, and fans get excited when you make those kinds of athletics plays," Jans said. "So do their teammates. They're rhythm changers. Don't just take the two... tear it down. Let's change the tenor of the game and let's be aggressive, because I know I don't like it when they dunk it in my goal."
Redshirt sophomore forward KeShawn Murphy made his season debut after missing the first five games with a foot injury he suffered over the summer. The Birmingham native gave the Bulldogs 10 minutes off the bench, and scored six points while making 4/6 free throw attempts and added two rebounds and two assists.
"It was a special day for him. He was back much earlier than any of us expected. He was way ahead of schedule with his rehab," Jans said. "That was about the number of minutes in my head we wanted for him. We didn't have a restriction or anything like that, but that was kind of what we were hoping for. To kind of get his feet wet.
Mississippi State returns to action Tuesday night in Atlanta, where they'll travel to Georgia Tech for the SEC-ACC challenge. The Yellow Jackets are 2-2 on the season, having lost their last two games to UMass Lowell and Cincinnati.
