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Mar. 3—The Mississippi State men’s basketball team is facing a unique challenge tonight.
MSU faces Texas A&M in College Station for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff on the SEC Network.
The Bulldogs are sitting at 13-12 with a 7-9 record in SEC play entering the two-game road stretch to end the regular season.
Texas A&M (8-7, 2-6) hasn’t played since Jan. 30. The Aggies’ last SEC game was Jan. 26 against LSU.
Six-straight Texas A&M games have been postponed, due to both COVID problems and the winter storm in the last month. Monday was the first time the Aggies have practiced as a full team since Feb. 1, head coach Buzz Williams said.
“In the month of February, we had nine total practices,” Williams said in his Tuesday press conference. “In eight of those nine practices, we didn’t even have the full team. So trying to have normal practice hasn’t been normal.
“We’re beginning to have some normalcy, but you can’t replicate a game when you can’t even replicate a true practice.”
When the Aggies were playing basketball, they were losers of five of their last seven games, with the only SEC win during that stretch coming against Mississippi State in Starkville. The Aggies lost to South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Ole Miss and LSU stretch.
Their last game before the hiatus, however, was a 68-61 win over Kansas State in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
“They could have put in six or eight new sets that we haven’t seen and that no one has seen,” MSU coach Ben Howland said of preparing for the Aggies. “Because they haven’t played in a month. I’m sure they’ll be excited to play after their players have been sitting there for basically a month without a chance to play.”
In the 56-55 win over Mississippi State in January, the Aggies had three players score in double digits. Sophomore forward Emmanuel Miller had 10 points and eight rebounds. He leads the Aggies with 14.8 points per game this year.
Andre Gordon and Jay Jay Chandler also scored in double digits.
Gordon, who averages 9.3 points per game, hit the game-winning jumper and then kept the Aggies ahead late in the game with a 3-pointer.
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