Alabama continues the nation’s most difficult schedule tonight at Coleman Coliseum, as a tough Mississippi State squad rolls into town. The Bulldogs are coming off a six point loss at Oklahoma, but beat both Texas A&M and Ole Miss by double digits in the two games before that. Of course, they also gave Alabama all they could handle in Starkville just a few weeks ago, in a game that the Tide escaped by four points.
Being another rematch, I will defer back to Erik’s preview of the first matchup.
Mississippi State is, to use the technical term, just weird as hell, man. Chris Jans runs a quirky system on both ends of the floor — defensively, it is a scheme that teams don’t see very often — unique, in the SEC even; and offensively, it is rare even nationally.
Let’s begin with the defensive side of the ball, and start by taking a look at Mississippi State’s game results: 95-90 one game, 65-60 the next. You see very few “normal” scores on there, and that’s a function of their defensive style of play. Like A&M and Ole Miss before them, the Bulldogs run a hybrid defense that is part-man, part-zone. However, unlike those teams, where the man defense is much more pronounced, the Bulldogs are, for all practical purposes. a box-and-1 zone team.
The Bulldogs employ a “denial and pack line” approach, where there is single man-pressure on the ball handler, but the other four defenders sit back in a shallow zone, surrounding the key — well away from the three-point line. The line that is being “packed” is the lane, not the perimeter, and the aim is to deny post entries and lobs, cuts to the basket, or backdoor screens. That is perhaps bad news for the Tide, who are 2nd in the country in two-point scoring, because all of the action inside the perimeter is aimed at the rim. This defense was custom made to force a steal off a bad pass, keep the ball away from the interior, and force a mid- to deep-range jumper late in the shot clock.
How to Watch
The game will tip off at 8pm CT, on ESPN2.
Prediction
You can bet that Nate Oats has issued a challenge to his guards to see if they can manage to slow down Josh Hubbard, who went absolutely nuclear in the last matchup. Hubbard singlehandedly carried the Bulldogs offense, launching 28 shots including 15 from behind the arc and pouring in 38 of the team’s 84 points. Add in three assists and Hubbard had a hand in more than 50% of the Mississippi State scoring.
That was by far his season high, and he shot well above his season averages across the board. It would behoove the Tide to see if anyone else on the team can beat them this time. Hubbard made 40% of his threes in that game and the rest of the roster combined to make two of ten. Alabama was able to win the glass and overcame atrocious foul shooting with 48% from three as a team.
It will all come down to Alabama’s effort. Hopefully they can avoid a fourth consecutive slow start. They have the better team, and you have to be encouraged by the way they played in the last 35 minutes against Kentucky.
The line is hovering around -8.5, and that sounds about right. Let’s call it Alabama 92, Mississippi State 83.
You can use this as your game thread for tonight.
Roll Tide.
