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Mississippi State's late rally falls short in 84-79 loss at Missouri

Paul Jones Mississippi State Bulldogsby: Paul Jones01/31/26PaulJonesOn3

Jayden Epps and Josh Hubbard combined for 45 points Saturday but it wasn’t enough as Mississippi State dropped an 84-79 decision at Missouri. Mississippi State made a late push in the final minutes but couldn’t overcome the Tigers, who improved to 13-1 at home this season.

The Bulldogs fell to 11-11 overall and 3-6 in the SEC while Missouri improved to 15-7 and 5-4.

“They were what we thought they were going to be,” head coach Chris Jans said afterwards. “We handled it okay but they came out of the gates knocking 3s down and put us on our heels. It wasn’t what we planned for. We didn’t play great but we didn’t play awful. But we didn’t play great on the road against a really good team.”

Epps had 23 points to pace State while Hubbard scored 20 of his 22 points in the second half. Shawn Jones had eight points and Jamarion Davis-Fleming had a game-high eight rebounds.

Mark Mitchell led the Tigers with 19 points, highlighted by an 8 of 12 showing at the line. T.O. Barrett had 16 for Missouri while Trent Pierce and Jayden Stone also finished in double digits with 13 and 11 points, respectively.

Missouri opened the second half on a 13-4 run and led by as many as 17 points in the final half. But led by Hubbard, the Bulldogs stormed back in the closing minutes. Hubbard completed a four-point play with 2:22 remaining to cut the Missouri lead to 74-71. However, moments later Hubbard missed the front end of a 1 and 1 and the Bulldogs never got any closer the rest of the way.

“We fought back,” added Jans. “They did stay together and gave ourselves a chance there with the free throws and a couple of shots. Unfortunately, they didn’t go down and it proved to be too much.

“We were switching up our defenses and the matchups changed. So we switched up our defenses depending on who they had in the game. Offensively, we were really frustrated early in the game. They are very big and physical. We struggled with it and if you look at the game stats, the (points off turnovers) jumps out to you.”

The Tigers opened the game on fire from deep and a trio of 3 pointers gave the Tigers an early 13-4 lead. Mississippi State steadily cut into the deficit and used a 10-0 to make a brief 26-25 advantage following an Epps 3 pointer with 8:47 left in the half. Missouri recovered, however, and led 42-35 at halftime.

For the game, State shot 43% from the field and made 11 of 28 from 3 point territory. The Bulldogs were 12 of 18 at the line and had 14 turnovers in which Missouri outscored State 21-8 in points off turnovers. State won the battle of the glass, 38-36.

The Tigers also shot 43% from the field and made 9 of 26 beyond the 3 point arc. Missouri was 25 of 33 at the foul line and had 10 turnovers.

State shot 41% in the opening half and made 4 of 12 beyond the 3 point arc. The Bulldogs were 7 of 10 at the foul line, had eight turnovers and outrebounded Missouri, 18-16. The Tigers shot 45% in the first half and made 8 of 18 from 3 point range. The Tigers were 8 of 12 at the foul line and had four first-half turnovers.

Up Next

Mississippi State gets a break in the schedule next week as the Bulldogs don’t play again until next Saturday. The Bulldogs will host No. 15 Arkansas next Saturday for an 11 a.m. tipoff at Humphrey Coliseum and the game will be televised on either ESPN or ESPN2. Entering Saturday night’s home game against Kentucky, Arkansas was 16-5 overall and 6-2 in the SEC.

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