MSU Meets South Carolina Thursday To Tip Off SEC Tournament

STARKVILLE, Miss. - Looking for that elusive second straight win against conference competition this season, the fourth-seeded Mississippi State Bulldogs (15-14, 5-11) will meet No. 5 SEC East seed South Carolina (15-14, 6-10) Thursday in Game 1 of this week's SEC Men's Basketball Tournament held in Nashville. With early-round tournament games set to be televised by Jefferson-Pilot Sports, Thursday's MSU-USC matchup is set to tip off at noon CT at the 20,025-seat Gaylord Entertainment Center.
JP Sports will televise all SEC Tournament games Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with Sunday's championship game featured as a national CBS telecast. Weekday tournament action from Nashville will be shown in the local Golden Triangle regional viewing area on FSN South, while Saturday's semifinals will be available on the regular JP Sports television outlets.
Rebounding from an early-season, seven-game league losing skid, coach Rick Stansbury's 15-14 Bulldogs head to Nashville this week having evenly split their last eight decisions, including a current four-game home winning streak, dating back to Feb. 4. After claiming their last four home contests all by double figures, the Bulldogs will look to benefit from the momentum gained from last Saturday's impressive 71-58 'Senior Day' home triumph over Alabama. Second-team all-SEC sophomore forward Charles Rhodes leads MSU in scoring (13.9 ppg) and rebounding (7.3 rpg), while unanimous Freshman All-SEC selection Jamont Gordon, a Nashville native, ranks second on the team in both categories (13.9 ppg & 6.6 rpg). Rhodes and Gordon enter postseason tournament play having scored in double figures in 17 and 11 consecutive games, respectively.
Guided by fifth-year head coach Dave Odom, the Gamecocks of South Carolina enter this week's SEC Tournament with season records of 15-14 overall and 6-10 in SEC play after closing out the regular season this past Saturday with a 67-63 road win over Auburn to break a four-game losing skid. USC had dropped its three prior decisions to LSU (64-61), Vanderbilt (57-56) and Georgia (48-47) by a collective total of only five points. Second-team all-SEC senior forward Tarence Kinsey tops the Gamecocks in scoring (15.5 ppg), while junior guard Tre' Kelley adds 11.6 points and a team-best 4.3 assists per game.
With Mississippi State owning a 10-6 all-time series lead over South Carolina since the Gamecocks joined the SEC in 1991-92, USC snapped a four-game series losing skid to MSU last month (Feb. 11) in Columbia by claiming an 83-61 home triumph over the Bulldogs at the Colonial Center. In the only prior meeting between the two teams in SEC Tournament competition, South Carolina posted a 69-62 first-round victory over State at the 2001 SEC Tournament held at Nashville's Gaylord Entertainment Center.
Having posted a composite 8-6 record in SEC Tournament play in the previous seven seasons under Stansbury's direction, Mississippi State ranks as the winningest Western Division team and third-winningest program overall (behind Kentucky and Florida) in SEC Tournament competition dating back to the 1998-99 season. With league tournament titles in 2002 and 1996, State joins Kentucky as the only two teams to have claimed more than one SEC Tournament championship over the past decade.