Missouri’s Mark Mitchell notched a game-high 17 points and four rebounds, and the Tigers collected their 10th Southeastern Conference victory by bashing Mississippi State 88-64 on Saturday afternoon in Starkville, Miss.
Missouri (20-9, 10-6 SEC) was on its game from the opening tip and ran out to a 20-point lead, 28-8, just past the midway point of the first half and never let up in the wire-to-wire win.
Shawn Phillips Jr. scored 14 of his 16 points in the first half and had four rebounds and two blocks.
Anthony Robinson netted 13 points, and T.O. Barrett and Trent Pierce had 10 each.
Missouri scored 27 points on Mississippi State’s 18 turnovers and moved to 20-1 when scoring at least 73 points in a game.
In losing for the sixth time in eight games and dropping their third straight overall, the Bulldogs (13-16, 5-11) did not take care of the ball on the offensive end and their defense — yielding 80 points per game and ranked next-to-last in the conference — failed to defend.
Josh Hubbard, the SEC’s second-leading scorer at 21.6 points per game, led with 16 points and three steals, while Quincy Ballard had 12 points and six boards.
A very slim favorite in the matchup, Missouri did not play like it right away, scoring the first nine points, highlighted by Phillips’ thunderous putback dunk at 18:45. The home side finally scored nearly three minutes in on Hubbard’s layup.
While Missouri made 7 of their first 10 shots and got four points apiece from Mitchell and Phillips, the visitors’ size and athleticism were an obvious advantage as the Bulldogs hit just three field goals and trailed 20-6 with 12 minutes remaining.
Increasing the lead to 50-19 at 2:07 after two free throws by Barrett, Missouri shot 61.3% (19 of 31) and forced 12 Mississippi State turnovers to take a 54-23 lead into the locker room at halftime — the squad’s largest halftime lead in SEC play this season.
Six minutes into the second half, the Tigers’ lead sat at 60-30 before Missouri went off on a 12-2 run.
That stretch was accentuated by Pierce’s wing three-pointer for a 68-32 edge at 12:42 as the Bulldogs could not chip into the massive deficit.
The Tigers continued the onslaught by growing the lead to 36 points and rolling on to a 6-2 mark in the past eight outings.
