Ben Howland and his Mississippi State basketball team (12-3 overall, 0-2 SEC) had the right sort of conditions to be able to lock up a crucial victory over the Ole Miss Rebels (13-2 overall, 3-0 SEC).
MSU was at home, the Bulldogs have a team with plenty of juniors and seniors in the starting lineup, and State was in position to bounce back from an infuriating conference loss to South Carolina earlier in the week.
Things didn’t work out so well for MSU.
Beating the Rebels would have given the Bulldogs their first SEC win of the season while also helping to put Mississippi State on the better end of this rivalry.