Mississippi State Women’s Basketball Falls to Florida 90-70
STARKVILLE, Miss. — The Mississippi State Bulldogs saw their five-game winning streak come to an end tonight to Florida at Humphrey Coliseum. The Bulldogs started slow in this game and never got on track.
MSU committed 20 turnovers to only 13 from the Gators, which proved to be the difference.
"We will talk to my team about that. I thought we didn't get into our reads (on offense)," Purcell said.
Also, the Gators shot 61 percent from the field and three-point range tonight compared to only 46 and 38 percent from the Bulldogs. Leilani Correa led the way for the Gators, scoring a game-high 29 points.
Correa came off the bench for the Gators and seemed always to hit a three when the Bulldogs were making a run in the third quarter.
"I think it started with her just hitting all those threes and you know, just gave her teammates confidence," Park-Lane said. "Shout out to them. They played a really good game. They wanted it more than us obviously."
The Bulldogs tried multiple defenses, going from man to zone while working in some full and half-court presses, but nothing seemed to faze the Gators.
"We tried. We tried our press I went with different lineups different people went man, we switched ball screen coverages. I think I used everything in my defensive playbook just gotta get a stop," Purcell said.
The backbreaker of this game came in the third quarter as MSU trimmed the Gator lead to 11, and the home crowd finally was into the game. However, a pair of Bulldog turnovers led to four easy points for Florida, and the Bulldogs never recovered.
MSU star forward Jessika Carter went down in the first quarter with an injury, but the Georgia native checked into the game in the second quarter. Purcell said it was an ankle injury for Carter.
Carter played 29 minutes and had a double-double with 16 points and 13 rebounds. The other Bulldog star, Jerkaila Jordan, scored 12 points.
This was a disappointing loss for MSU, but the Bulldogs must not hang onto this loss because there are no easy games in the SEC. Mississippi State sits at 20-6 and 7-4 in the SEC.
The Bulldogs will be back in action next week at Ole Miss at 3 p.m C.T. on SEC Network+.
