No. 10 Mississippi State routs Troy 122-82
STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — Despite another lopsided win where Mississippi State put up over 120 points, coach Vic Schaefer wasn’t happy.
Only four of his players were on time for the afternoon shootaround and his team gave up way too many points in a 122-82 rout of Troy on Monday night.
“Our immaturity really shows. It’s glaring. Almost to a point that it’s embarrassing,” Schaefer said. “It’s on me. It’s not their fault. It’s my job to teach and coach these young ladies to do the little things. There’s a big picture for me.”
Schaefer was proud of the leadership of his point guard Myah Taylor who threw in a career game and also kept the coach from earning a technical foul prior to the opening tip when he was contemplating starting just those four players. Instead, Taylor helped lift the team up and get them going.
The sophomore point guard had a career-high 20 points in the game and added seven assists, five steals, three rebounds. She was also 8 of 11 shooting.
“I take pride in defense and helping my teammates. I saw with the team that the energy wasn’t there so I tried to show them that we needed to pick it up. I tried to bring that tonight for my team and go out and play as hard as I can.”
The 122-point effort came one game after Mississippi State scored a school-record 124 on Friday night against Murray State.
It was a 28-13 lead for the Bulldogs at the end of the first quarter and they extended that out to 66-38 at the halftime mark after dropping 38 points in the second quarter. Troy won the third quarter by one point but it didn’t put much of a dent into the Bulldogs heavy margin.
The Trojans (3-1) were proud of the work they did rebounding and scoring points, two things they’ve done as well as anyone in the Sun Belt under head coach Chanda Rigby.
Troy leads the country in rebounds and had 51 to the Bulldogs’ 48 and were just eight points off of their 90-point average on the year.
“We’re trying to out-rebound everyone in the country and score more points than everyone else,” Rigby said. “(Mississippi State) is truly a great team. We weren’t used to the level of physicality that Mississippi State plays with but we won the third quarter and I’m really proud of that.”
Despite the struggles on the defensive end and the immaturity of his team that Schaefer spoke of postgame, they had five players score in double figures led by Jordan Danberry’s 24 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Mississippi State center Jessika Carter finished with her second-straight double-double with 19 points and 14 rebounds on 8 of 9 shooting. Andra Espinoza-Hunter had 13 points and Aliyah Matharu finished with 10 points.
Troy was paced by Jasmine LeBlanc who had 19 points and 11 rebounds. Jasmine Robinson had 15 points and Alexus Dye had 12 points and 16 rebounds.
BIG PICTURE
Mississippi State: It was the second-straight game for the Bulldogs to rack up over 100 points but the defense also had its issues with over 80 points surrendered to the Trojans and the rebounding margin uncharacteristically close.
Troy: On the flip side, the Trojans proved themselves on the offensive end against a top 10 team. Troy averaged 90 points a game coming into the night.
UP NEXT
Mississippi State travels to Jackson State on Thursday.
Troy travels to Duke on Sunday.
