Three Takeaways from Mississippi State Women's Basketball Loss Against Florida
The Mississippi State Bulldogs have its five-game win streak snapped shockingly to the Florida Gators. They defeated them earlier in SEC play at Florida but issues held the lady Bulldogs from extending their streak to six games.
Jessika Carter's Injury
Jessika Carter is the engine for this Mississippi State team and four minutes into the game, she landed on a Florida defender after attempting a put-back shot. She was helped to the locker room and eventually returned during the second quarter.
With her missing in action during the first quarter, the Gators took advantage of a scrambling State team that struggled to stop the team from getting into the paint during the first half. In the first half alone, Florida shot 70.4 percent from the field and finished the game shooting 61 percent.
Carter still had impressive numbers by scoring 16 points and grabbing 13 rebounds but, watching the game, you could tell that she was not at 100 percent.
Costly Turnover
For the game, MSU turned the ball over 20 times compared to 13 from Florida. That is the story of the game itself but the timing of the turnovers is what hurt the most.
State trimmed the lead on multiple occasions at one point getting it down to 11 but throwing the ball away and not holding on to the ball killed any momentum that was being built. Being down for the whole game is one thing but throwing away momentum-swinging opportunities can also finish a team off and that is what happened for the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs went on several 7-0 runs to try and fight their way back into the game. However, the most crucial turnovers came in the third quarter after getting the crowd back into the game. For most of the afternoon, the crowd was trying to find a reason to buy into the game and two back-to-back threes gave them a reason to get loud again. However, two turnovers led to two easy Gator buckets that took the home crowd completely out for the rest of the game.
No Answers On Defense
Offensively, that was one of the best performances that Florida has produced all season and simultaneously, it was one of the worst defensive performances for Mississippi State.
From shooting 70.4 percent from the field and shooting 61.1 percent from three, no matter what head coach Sam Purcell threw at the Gators, there was no give in their performance. MSU has some of the better on-ball defenders in the SEC like JerKaila Jordan and Debresha Powe but with Carter's injury in the first quarter, they could not find their footing all night.
Florida's Leilani Correa scored a game-high of 29 coming off the bench and 18 can in the first half. Carter not at 100 percent hurt the team on occasions with slow rotations and the constant attack on the basket that could not be stopped. It was a flawless offensive game plan from the Gators and the Bulldogs could not keep up because of the mistakes of their own.
The five-game win streak was one of the best stretches for the Bulldogs since the 2019-20 season. Now they turn their attention to Ole Miss as they travel to Oxford next week at 3 p.m. central on SEC Network+.
