December 2002 MSU Basketball Skuttle-Butt

12/30 vs Hopkins of Minnesota, which matched up Outlaw with 6-8 Kris Humphries, a Duke signee.

12/30/02
Men's Basketball
MSU's men's basketball team, fresh off a nine-point win over the 5th ranked Oklahoma Sooners, take on the University of South Alabama Monday night at 7 p.m. in Mobile, Alabama.

Women's Basketball
Missoula, MT ­ The 14th ranked Lady Bulldogs rebounded from their first round loss to Utah in the Lady Grizz Classic in convincing fashion with a 70-38 win over Texas-Pan American in the consolation game Sunday night.

Mississippi State (9-2) opened the game with an 11-0 scoring spurt and never looked back. The Lady Broncs first basket came at the 17:08 mark of the opening period. MSU would push their lead out to as many as 22 points with 3:42 left in the half. They would take a 19-point advantage in to the halftime break at 37-18. In the second half the Lady ‘Dogs led by as many as 34 points with five minutes left to play.

Alex Gravel of UTPA (0-10) kept them in the ballgame with her 12 points in the first 20 minutes of the game. Gravel connected on four three-pointers in the first half; she finished the game with a game-high 16 points.

State's defense pressured the Lady Broncs all night long. The Maroon and White forced a season-high 30 turnovers and 15 steals on the evening. They held UTPA to 24 percent shooting. MSU owned the paint and the charity stripe. They out-scored UTPA 16-0 in the paint, while hitting 18-23 from the free throw line.

"We forced 30 turnovers tonight that led to many easy baskets", said head coach Sharon Fanning. "We didn't play our best game, but defensively we played well."

Tan White led the Lady Bulldogs in the scoring column with 15 points. The Tupelo, Miss., native tied her career-high in steals with seven. She also dished out five assists and blocked two shots. LaToya Thomas finished with 14 points in the contest. Thomas only had three points in the final 20 minutes.

Freshman guard Blessing Chekwa also reached double-figures in scoring. Chekwa recorded a career-high 12 points, she was also 2-3 from three-point range.

"She came up with some big stats for us tonight", said Fanning. "We need her to build on this game," added Fanning.

Senior Renea Jones added eight points, while Doceide Warren contributed five points. Chalandra Hilliard and Tiffany Moore both scored their first points in Maroon and White.

The Lady Bulldogs return home after a seven-game road trip when they open the new year with a match up with Xavier on Thursday at the Humphrey Coliseum. Tip off in The Hump is slated for 7 p.m.

"They (Xavier) shoot the three-pointer just as well as Utah," mentioned Fanning. "It's going to be great to be at home."

Source: MSU Media Relations

12/24/02 - The MSU men's basketball team remained at 16th in the AP poll and 17th in the USA Today/ESPN poll. MSU's next opponent, Oklahoma, is 5th in both polls.

12/17/02 - Both of MSU's men's basketball team moved up to 16th and 17th in the latest polls.

Links:
Men's AP
Men's USA Today

12/16/02
STARKVILLE, Miss. - In preparation for Wednesday's basketball contest versus Georgia State in Jackson, the 22nd-ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs will conduct a public shoot-around Tuesday afternoon at the Mississippi Coliseum. Hosted by the Greater Jackson Bulldog Boosters Club, Tuesday's event is free and open to the public, and is set to begin around 5 p.m.

Mississippi State head basketball coach Rick Stansbury is scheduled to speak following Tuesday's shoot-around, and Bulldog players will be available to sign autographs beginning at 5:30 p.m. For additional information, please contact John Passons (601-672-4177).

On the heels of Saturday's 71-61 victory over 11th-ranked Xavier at New York's Madison Square Garden, the 6-1 Bulldogs will next meet the Panthers of Georgia State University, coached by Charles "Lefty" Driesell, Wednesday evening at Jackson's Mississippi Coliseum. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.

With all seats reserved at $12 apiece, tickets for Wednesday's MSU-GSU contest in Jackson may be purchased through the Mississippi Coliseum Box Office (601-355-5252) as well as through all TicketMaster outlets. Tickets may also be ordered online at www.mstateathletics.com.

Wednesday's meeting with Georgia State in Jackson will mark Mississippi State's first basketball appearance in the state's capital city since the Bulldogs claimed a 105-53 victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff at the Mississippi Coliseum in Stansbury's MSU head coaching debut on Nov. 17, 1998.

STATE'S MARIO AUSTIN NAMED SEC PLAYER OF THE WEEK; JUNIOR ALL-AMERICA CANDIDATE EARNS NATIONAL HONORS

STARKVILLE, Miss. - Mario Austin's much-anticipated season debut performance this past weekend has been recognized by the Southeastern Conference, as Mississippi State's junior all-America candidate has been named the SEC Player of the Week.

In addition, Austin has earned national recognition by claiming Dick Vitale's (ESPN.com) Player of the Week as well as CollegeInsider.com's Star of the Week honors for his season debut efforts.

Making his 2002-03 season debut after sitting out the year's first six games until officially cleared to play last Tuesday by the NCAA, Austin scored a game-high 28 points (20 in the second half) and collected nine rebounds to help pace the 22nd-ranked Bulldogs to Saturday's 71-61 neutral-site victory over 11th-ranked Xavier at New York's Madison Square Garden. While setting new career highs for field goals made (12) and attempted (21) against the XU Musketeers, Austin's 28 points marked the third-best scoring effort of his MSU career. A year ago as a second-team all-SEC selection, the reigning SEC Tournament MVP tallied 32 and 30 points in respective home regular-season wins over Kentucky and Arkansas.

This week's league recognition marks the third SEC Player of the Week honor collected by Austin during his three-year collegiate career, tying him with former Bulldog standouts Erick Dampier and Darryl Wilson as three-time recipients of the weekly honor. The York, Ala., native earned the award twice last season (Jan. 7 and March 4), while ranking among the SEC's Top-10 statistical leaders in scoring (16.1 ppg), rebounding (7.6 rpg) and field-goal percentage (55.7%) as a sophomore.

MSU's Wooden All-American Award and Naismith College Player of the Year nominee, along with his Mississippi State teammates, will next meet the Georgia State Panthers Wednesday night in Jackson. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. at the Mississippi Coliseum, and tickets are available at $12 apiece through the Mississippi Coliseum Box Office (601-355-5252) as well as through all TicketMaster outlets.

Source: MSU Media Relations

12/14/02
Men's Basketball
STARKVILLE, Miss. - Two nationally ranked basketball teams with identical 5-1 records will square off Saturday at the 'World's Most Famous Arena,' as the 22nd-ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs meet the 11th-ranked Xavier Musketeers in New York City. Tip-off time for the inter-regional hardwood clash is set for noon ET at Madison Square Garden, and the game will be televised nationally on Fox Sports Net.

Ranked 22nd nationally in this week's ESPN/USA Today coaches poll and 24th by the Associated Press, coach Rick Stansbury's 5-1 Bulldogs most recently closed out their longest season-opening homestand since 1944-45 with an impressive 78-38 victory over Louisiana Tech last Saturday in Starkville. After dropping a 79-76 season-opening decision to Louisiana-Lafayette on Nov. 23, MSU has since strung together consecutive home wins over McNeese State (81-65), Jacksonville (100-65), Alabama A&M (100-58), Jackson State (71-56) and Louisiana Tech. Saturday's neutral-site contest against Xavier in New York will mark the first of five straight games over the next two weeks to be played away from home for Mississippi State.

On the heels of the team's recent 40-point home triumph over Louisiana Tech, State enters the weekend leading the SEC in both scoring offense (84.3 ppg) and scoring margin (+24.2 ppg), which also rank 17th and ninth among the national team leaders, respectively. Having also outrebounded all six opponents thus far on the young campaign, the Bulldogs pace the Southeastern Conference and rank fifth nationally in rebound margin (+13.7 rpg) - a statistical category in which they've led the SEC during each of the past two seasons. In addition, MSU tops the league in both steals (12.3 spg; 8th in the NCAA) and turnover margin (+4.83).

Along with marking the Bulldogs' first road action of the campaign against their first ranked opponent of the year, Saturday's encounter with Xavier is also expected to mark the 2002-03 season debut for their preseason all-America candidate Mario Austin. The reigning SEC Tournament MVP was officially cleared to play by the NCAA earlier in the week after sitting out the year's first six games. In Austin's absence, MSU has been sparked by the veteran backcourt of junior Timmy Bowers and senior Derrick Zimmerman, who have combined to average 28.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, 8.0 assists and 5.8 steals per contest between them. Along with rating as the SEC's fifth-leading scorer (18.2 ppg), Bowers leads the league and ranks tied for ninth nationally in steals (3.3 spg). Zimmerman also scores in double figures (10.7 ppg) on the year, as do senior forward Michal Ignerski (12.0 ppg) and sophomore guard Winsome Frazier (10.2 ppg).

Presently ranked as high as 11th in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll and 13th in the AP rankings, Xavier University also sports a 5-1 mark after claiming a 68-58 home win over Miami (Ohio) this past Monday. Since dropping a 63-62 road decision to now-19th ranked Stanford in the second round of the Owens Corning Preseason NIT, the Musketeers have rebounded to also post home victories over Florida A&M (93-64) and Purdue (74-59) as well as earning a hard-fought 50-44 road win over Cincinnati.

Guided by second-year head coach Thad Matta, the Musketeers, 26-6 overall and 14-2 in league play a year ago, are the defending champions of the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament. Like Mississippi State, they advanced to the second round of the 2002 NCAA Midwest Regional in Dallas before falling to eventual Final Four participant Oklahoma. XU is led in scoring (19.7 ppg) and rebounding (9.5 rpg) by 6-9 National Player of the Year candidate David West. Senior guard Lionel Chalmers averages 15.3 points and a team-leading 4.5 assists per outing, while 6-5 junior guard and all-America candidate Romain Sato adds 14.5 points and 8.8 rebounds a game.

MSU's last game was Dec. 4, defeating Memphis 79-63.

The Lady Bulldogs lead the series, 1-0. The last meeting was in the second round of the WNIT, March 17, 2001 and the Lady Bulldogs won 86-77.

MSU is 2-4 overall versus the Big Ten. The Lady Bulldogs faced Penn State earlier this season in the semifinals of the WNIT, dropping their first game, 82-66.

Illinois started off the 2002-03 season with a 5-0 record, before falling to Arizona, 75-73, in the Championship of the Fiesta Bowl Classic. They most recently defeated Eastern Michigan, 65-57, to increase their homecourt record to 4-0.

Illinois has a deep roster this year with five different players scoring in double digits to start off the season. The Fighting Illini return four starters to this year¹s roster, Cindy Dallas, Shavonna Hunter, Iveta Marcauskaite and Angelina Williams.

Illinois ended up last season with a 15-14 overall record, 7-9 record in the Big Ten, to finish in eighth place. Illinois lost to Michigan State, 70-57, in the WNIT second round, in its sixth postseason appearance.

Illinois head coach Theresa Grentz is entering her 28th season as a head coach and is now two wins shy of 600. She entered the season with a mark of 592-241 (.711) overall and 131-86 (.604) at Illinois.

Source: MSU Media Relations

12/08/02
Men's Basketball
Excerpts from the MSU/La. Tech postgame press conference.

MSU coach Rick Stansbury:

Opening Comments:

"As a coach you can't be anything but very pleased with that effort that you just saw. Louisiana Tech is a very good basketball team. I thought that our team, defensively, came out and absolutely took away all of their strengths. (Antonio) Meeking is a heck of a post player. And I thought that all of our post players did a terrific job all day long. But the key was that our guards put so much pressure on their guards that they never got into the ballgame. I thought that we reacted well and adjusted well. We changed defenses a lot and our kids were really into it. Anytime you look at a stat sheet and see that you outrebounded a basketball team 56 to 29 - a very good rebounding basketball team, a team that was second in the nation in rebounding margin last year - you know you are playing with some tremendous effort."

Q&A with Rick Stansbury:

Have you had a better defensive stretch than you did at the beginning of the second half (20-0 run during the first 9 minutes.-Gene)?
"I don't know if I've had a group of guys who have been struggling defensively on the inside and come out and do some things (defensively) that we really wanted them to do. I saw some guys step it up to another level. To go on a 20-0 streak against a very good basketball team, I don't know if that's ever happened. Maybe against a team that wasn't very good, but Louisiana Tech is a good basketball team. Three minutes to go in the first half against (7th ranked) Florida it was a four-point game."

Once Mario comes back, what do you think this team will lack? You have great defensive players, you have inside and outside shooters, you have rebounders, you have depth. What else will this team need once Mario is back?
"Let me say this to answer your question: When we get Mario Austin back, I think there is no question that we have a chance to be a pretty good basketball team.

"I think that the time that Marcus Campbell has been able to get has helped him. He has gained a lot of confidence, but more importantly I think the team has gained confidence in him. I think that he has stepped up his energy another level. Being able to play through mistakes has allowed him to do that. He probably wouldn't have been able to do that as easily if we had Mario Austin."

Opening Comments:

"I told Rick (Stansbury) right after the game when I shook his hand - and I do believe this - they have a chance to be great. I really believe that. We played (7th ranked) Florida two weeks ago. (Mississippi State) gets Austin back, they are a legitimate top 10 team. They have a chance to be great.

"The thing that stuck out for me on the floor was how athletic they are. It is unbelievable how athletic they are and they are playing with great confidence. They are very, very good and really overwhelmed us. We didn't help our cause missing some open shots that we really needed to make for our team to stay with them as close as we could. We guarded them pretty decent in the first half for a while, but then we really got overwhelmed offensively on our end of the floor. Then it really snowballed in the second half."

Q&A with :

Not taking anything away from Mississippi State, but do you think your guys may have just had a bad game today?
"I don't know. I don't think we are this bad, but I'm not sure that we are good. Everybody tells us that we are supposed to be pretty good. You have to remember that we lost two very good guards last year, our two leading scorers. Even though we have a lot of guys back, we have a lot of guys back who were complementary players. Even Meeking was only our third leading scorer last year. We have some work to do to figure out how to maximize what we have. You really shouldn't do that at Florida and at Mississippi State."

Henderson, a 6-3-post player, attended Pineview High School in Lisbon, La., where she has had a stellar career. Her junior season alone, she averaged a double-double with 25 ppg and 15 rpg, not to mention four bpg.

"Natasha is an excellent athlete that should help us in transition," said head coach Sharon Fanning. "She is a great rebounder, quick jumper and has a very good understanding of the game."

Henderson was tabbed District MVP her freshman, sophomore and junior seasons. Last year she was named All-Area and All-State Player of the Year for Louisiana. She was the MVP of Class C, spanning the entire state of Louisiana. Pineview also awarded her MVP of the team as well.

Henderson is the third recruit that Fanning has signed for next season. The two others include Tiania Burns of Nashville, Tenn. and Ashley Sentimore of Destrehan, La.

Source: MSU Media Relations

12/03/02
Women's Basketball
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- The Lady Bulldogs travel to Memphis, Tenn. Dec. 4 in their second of a seven game road stance. Tip-off time is set for 7 p.m. (CT). MSU is coming off a 76-57 win over Houston on Nov. 27 and Memphis tallied up two wins over the weekend in its Lady Tiger Thanksgiving Classic, against Tennessee State (92-71) and Michigan State (59-56).

MSU is rather unsuccessful when playing at Memphis, totaling a 1-15 road record. Overall the Lady Tigers lead the series 19-10 but MSU did take the last meeting, 95-73, on Nov. 27, 2001.

Memphis is currently riding a four-game winning streak, three of which have been at home, to start off the 2002-03 season. The Lady Tigers return three starters to this year¹s squad, Princess Swilley, Shannon Hamp and Kalara McFadyen. So far this season the points have been spread out between Swilley, Hamp, Tamika Butler, Raven Rogers and Victoria Crawford.

Memphis finished up last season with an 11-17 overall record, 5-9 in the Conference USA to finish in 10th place.

LaToya Thomas recorded her career-high 48 points at Memphis in 2000.

Source: MSU Media Relations

12/1/02 - Excerpts from MSU's postgame press conference.

MSU coach Rick Stansbury:

Opening Comments:

"I thought that I saw improvement in a number of areas. It is always good to win but it is good to win when you see some guys that you think have made some improvements in some areas. That is what I saw tonight.

"I thought we came out in the first half and established the game defensively. I thought that we really got into some guys as well as you could. I guess the most disappointing thing was we didn't go ahead and bury them at the start of the second half like good teams have to do. I think we turned it over 3 of our first 4 possessions and had easy shots or easy turnovers. We let that carry down to the defensive end. And all of a sudden what should have been a 23-point game was a 12-point game. But our kids picked it back up defensively and found ways to create a lot of offense out of our defense.

"I thought that (Winsome) Frazier came off the bench and gave us a great lift offensively."

About Jacksonville:
"They were undermanned too, tonight. They were without one of their players as were we. They are going to be very good this year. They are not picked to win that league for no reason. That is the team to beat in that league. (Hugh Durham) will get them together. I think that is the team that you will see in the (NCAA) Tournament."

Opening Comments:

"There were a number of things that impressed me (about Mississippi State) other than the talent. What set the tone of the game was that they did a great job defensively. Anytime you get the talented athlete that will play defense, you have a chance to be really good. Defense is not something that people volunteer to do. You have to sell them on the idea to be a champion, you have to be good defensively. They are talented but they took us out with their defensive play in the first half. Another thing that impressed me about them was as the game went on a lot of teams will get into a game and play with a lot of emotion, then when they get a lead the team concept has a tendency to drift and the me attitude takes over. From my vantage point - which was not a fun one - as a coach you can really appreciate. Over the course of 40 minutes, they stayed together as a team. Even when the game got out of hand, they continued to play well as a team. Speaking as a coach, I appreciate and admire that tendency. This bodes well for them down the road.

"Their coaching staff has sold them on the idea that to be really good you have to play defense, but there is something about the makeup of the kids that is positive. They stayed together the whole game. I know they dropped the first game. I didn't see the game, but this is what I think happened. All year, let's say from October 12th until the first game, here is (Mario) Austin. He is the key. Now they find out, boom, this guy is not eligible to play. Now, we have to make some substitutions and do this and make some adjustments. People had to change their roles because the bell cow is not there. However, if they played again, I would bet on Mississippi State.

"Like I said on the radio, I hope they get the (Mario Austin) situation straighten out in a positive way. I don't know Austin, but you don't like to see bad things happen to a young guy. You don't like to see something like this happen to a young guy who likes to play. I hope they get that worked out."

Q&A with Hugh Durham:

Weren't you missing some players tonight due to an NCAA rule?
"Yeah, we were missing four players and two starters. Actually, it was my mistake. I signed off on it to let them play in a summer league. I thought I knew the rule but didn't know it. The sad part about it is the players did what they were supposed to do. They came to me as the coach/athletic director and I screwed up. We'll get two of them back Monday. Then, we will get another one back next week. He played seven games, so he has to sit seven games." [The NCAA rule states that a player can't participate in a summer league that is more than 100 miles from the player's campus.-Gene]