Teams that attempt an abundance of 3-point shots are said to either “live” by the three or “die” by the three. If that is the case, the Mississippi State University men’s basketball team (12-9, 3-5) was far from life support Saturday in Starkville, Miss., knocking down a season-high 13 3-pointers on the way to a 85-78 come-from-behind victory against the LSU Tigers (13-9, 2-6). The win was only the Bulldogs’ third in their past 10 outings. The loss was the Tigers’ fifth in a row, their longest losing streak since February 2003. Junior forward Glen Davis did all he could to will LSU to a win. Davis scored 27 points and pulled down 10 rebounds in 38 minutes of play. Sophomore guard Garrett Temple had only his second double-figure scoring game in Southeastern Conference play this season with 16 points to go along with five assists. Sophomore guard Reginald Delk led the Bulldogs with 18 points and went 5-for-6 from behind the arc. The lone senior in Mississippi State’s starting lineup, guard Dietric Slater, scored 15 points. LSU coach John Brady said following the game that after so much focus on fixing the team’s offensive problems, attention must now shift toward mending the defense. “We get one phase corrected [the offense], but we get beat in transition early in the game, and they make threes over us,” Brady said. “The second half, they break us down off the dribble. We just gave up too many points, and they made every big shot they needed to make.” The Bulldogs shot 50.9 percent from the field against the Tigers. LSU finished the game shooting 53.4 percent from the floor – including 61.5 percent in the first half – but committed 19 turnovers in the game, six more than Mississippi State. The Tigers out-rebounded the Bulldogs, 36-26, and dominated Mississippi State in points in the paint, 44-30. LSU opened the game on a 14-3 run and had two 11-point leads in the first half. Mississippi State got within one point on four occasions in the first half and took its first lead, 35-33, with a 3-pointer by Delk at the 2:28 mark. A layup by junior forward Charles Rhodes as time expired tied the game at 39 going into halftime. The Tigers regained the lead early in the second period, but a 7-0 run gave the Bulldogs a 56-54 lead with 11:44 left in the contest. After a series of lead changes, Temple fouled Delk behind the 3-point line, and Delk converted a four-point play to give Mississippi State a 69-64 lead with 6:37 remaining in the game. Shortly after, the Bulldogs switched to a zone defense, something that has posed problems for the Tigers in multiple games this season. Mississippi State held LSU scoreless for a 3:14 stretch in the final 5:00 of the contest. Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said in a news release following the game that there was no need to preach to his team how important the game against the Tigers was. “We all understood the urgency of this game,” Stansbury said. “We don’t ever talk about ‘must’ games, and I am not going to talk about a ‘must’ win again, but we all understood how important this game was without saying that.”
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