Mississippi State vs Louisiana-Lafayette

CAJUN COMEBACK FALLS SHORT AT FIESTA BOWL CLASSIC ... Dec. 28, 2000

TUCSON, Ariz. – Mississippi State used a 19-4 run early in the second half to take a 20-point and then held off a furious comeback in taking a 90-80 win over Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns in first-round competition Thursday at the McKale Center during the Fiesta Bowl Classic.

Louisiana-Lafayette (4-4) rallied late and pulled to within six points on three different occasions late in the game but was unable to get any close in dropping into the consolation bracket. The Cajuns will now face the loser of the Arizona-Butler game, which was being played Thursday night, at 5:15 p.m. (CST) Saturday.

Five Cajuns score in double figures, but it would not be enough as MSU's Antonio Jackson posted a game-best 28 points and Tang Hamilton chipped in with 24 points. Both players benefited from 10-of-11 nights from the free throw line.

Lonnie Thomas scored 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting to lead Louisiana-Lafayette, while Orlando Butler chipped in with 15 points and a team-best-tying seven rebounds. Brad Boyd came off the bench to tally 13 points, including three 3-pointers, while Kenneth Lawrence scored 11 points and Reggie DeGray 10 points.

Mario Austin came off the bench to give MSU 13 points, while Marckell Patterson added 11.

In the first half, MSU jumped out to a 22-13 lead in the game's first 11 minutes before the Cajuns took off on a 17-6 run over the next six minutes to take a 30-28 lead, their only lead in the game.

However, the Bulldogs closed out the first half on a 12-3 run, thanks to seven points from Patterson, and took a 40-33 lead into the locker room at the break.

In the second half, the Cajuns scored six of the period's first eight minutes and pulled to within 42-39 at the 17:32 mark on DeGray's jumper.

Unfortunately, that would be as close as the game would get for the rest of the night. The Bulldogs would score the game's next 16 points over a three-minute span for a comfortable 58-39 lead.

"In the second half, we came out and scored the first two baskets, but from there, we just seemed to run out of gas," said head coach Jessie Evans, who returned to Tucson for the first time after serving nine seasons as an Arizona assistant coach.

It seemed that MSU held the game firmly in control with only 7:12 left when Tang Hamilton's free throws gave the Bulldogs a 72-52 lead. But Louisiana-Lafayette responded with a run of its own, outscoring MSU 14-2 over the next 2:31 to pull to within 74-66.

With his team's lead quickly shrinking, Jackson then hit a driving jumper with only two seconds left on shot clock to push the MSU advantage back to eight points.

Louisiana-Lafayette would close to within six points at 82-76 on Boyd's third and final three-pointer of the game at the 1:24 mark, and at 86-80 on consecutive free throws from Thomas with only 1:03 left. But MSU responded with free throws each time to seal the victory.

"Mississippi State just played harder than we did," Evans said. "Once they got the lead up to 20 points, we used up a lot of energy to get back in the game."

The Cajuns were barraged by fouls early in the second half, and the Bulldogs made them pay, hitting 21-of-25 attempts from the charity stripe. After totaling only 11 fouls in the first 20 minutes of action, the Cajuns posted seven fouls to put MSU in the bonus before the 16-minute mark and had tallied 10 fouls to put the Bulldogs in the double bonus only seven minutes in to the final period.

Mississippi State vs Louisiana-Lafayette OFFICIAL BASKETBALL BOX SCORE -- G A M E T O T A L S Mississippi State vs Louisiana-Lafayette 12/28/00 4:15 p.m. at Lute Olson Court, McKale Center, Tucson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VISITORS: Mississippi State 7-2 TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS No. N A M E FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN 20 HAMILTON, Tang f 6-10 2-3 10-11 3 6 9 4 24 1 3 0 2 20 21 GHOLAR, Michael f 1-6 0-3 1-2 2 4 6 4 3 1 3 0 0 24 55 JACKSON, Robert c 0-6 0-0 0-0 3 1 4 5 0 0 0 0 0 9 11 JACKSON, Antonio g 8-15 2-6 10-11 1 6 7 1 28 3 2 0 1 35 24 PATTERSON, Marckell g 3-8 1-4 4-4 4 0 4 0 11 3 1 0 0 33 10 GOFFER, Roy 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 5 15 BOWERS, Timmy 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 22 ZIMMERMAN, Derrick 1-5 0-1 2-2 0 0 0 2 4 5 1 0 0 22 25 BOSWELL, Tyrus 3-3 0-0 0-0 0 2 2 4 6 0 1 0 0 12 31 HARPER, Ontario 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 33 SMITH, Quentin 0-1 0-0 1-2 0 3 3 5 1 0 2 0 0 13 54 AUSTIN, Mario 4-10 0-0 5-8 1 6 7 1 13 0 1 0 1 25 TEAM ........................................ 1 1 2 TOTALS 26-65 5-17 33-40 15 29 44 27 90 15 14 0 5 200 TOT-FG 1stH: 12-35 34.3% 2ndH: 14-30 46.7% OT: 0-0 00.0% Game: 40.0% Deadbl 3pt-FG 1stH: 4-11 36.4% 2ndH: 1-6 16.7% OT: 0-0 00.0% Game: 29.4% Rebs FThrow 1stH: 12-15 80.0% 2ndH: 21-25 84.0% OT: 0-0 00.0% Game: 82.5% 4, 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOME TEAM: Louisiana-Lafayette 4-4 TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS No. N A M E FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN 30 THOMAS, Lonnie f 6-8 0-0 6-7 1 2 3 4 18 0 4 1 0 23 52 DeGRAY, Reggie f 3-9 0-0 4-6 4 2 6 3 10 1 1 2 1 21 42 SMITH, Brett c 1-4 0-0 4-7 2 5 7 4 6 0 2 0 0 19 22 HARMON, Blane g 0-4 0-3 2-2 0 2 2 3 2 2 3 0 0 31 23 BUTLER, Orlando g 4-10 1-5 6-8 3 4 7 3 15 5 2 2 1 35 1 EVANS, Jarret 0-2 0-2 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 3 BOYD, Brad 5-8 3-6 0-0 2 0 2 3 13 1 0 0 2 15 4 LANDRY, Antoine 0-1 0-1 0-0 0 2 2 0 0 1 2 0 1 5 5 LAWRENCE, Kenneth 4-7 1-4 2-2 0 3 3 2 11 1 1 0 0 15 13 JONES, Billy 2-4 0-1 0-0 0 2 2 3 4 2 1 0 1 18 32 ROBINS, Darryl 0-1 0-0 0-1 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 3 34 JOHNSON, Anthony 0-2 0-2 0-0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 1 0 6 55 DAVIS, Robert 0-0 0-0 1-2 0 1 1 4 1 0 1 0 0 4 TEAM ........................................ 1 0 1 TOTALS 25-60 5-24 25-35 13 26 39 29 80 13 19 7 6 200 TOT-FG 1stH: 10-26 38.5% 2ndH: 15-34 44.1% OT: 0-0 00.0% Game: 41.7% Deadbl 3pt-FG 1stH: 2-7 28.6% 2ndH: 3-17 17.6% OT: 0-0 00.0% Game: 20.8% Rebs FThrow 1stH: 11-18 61.1% 2ndH: 14-17 82.4% OT: 0-0 00.0% Game: 71.4% 2, 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OFFICIALS: Tommy Nunez, Ruben Ramos, Scott Grimm TECHNICAL FOULS: Mississippi State - none Louisiana-Lafayette - none ATTENDANCE: n/a SCORE BY PERIODS: 1st 2nd OT1 OT2 OT3 OT4 TOTAL Mississippi State 40 50 90 Louisiana-Lafayette 33 47 80 Bank One Fiesta Bowl Classic - First Round

University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics

Mississippi State vs Louisiana-Lafayette

Related News

Related Videos

Footer