Josh Hubbard scored 22 points and led a 3-point shooting attack as Mississippi State routed Tulane 106-76 on Saturday in the Holiday Hoopsgiving event in Atlanta.
Hubbard made 5-of-7 3-pointers for the Bulldogs, who finished 13-of-28 shooting on 3-pointers and never trailed. Cameron Matthews and Jimmy Bell Jr. added 14 points each, and D.J. Jeffries and Shakeel Moore had 11 each for Mississippi State (7-2), which led by as many as 41 points.
Kolby King scored 18, Collin Holloway added 12 and Tre’ Williams had 10 to lead the Green Wave (6-2), who had won three games in a row. Tulane, which had shot better than 50 percent in six of seven games, shot just 42.1 percent and finished more than 12 points short of its American Athletic Conference-leading scoring average of 79.9 points per game.
Mississippi State, which got outscored 15-2 at the end of a one-point loss to Southern six days earlier, started much faster than it finished that game.
Moore and Dashawn Davis each made a 3-pointer and Bell added four straight points as the Bulldogs scored the first 10 points of the game.
Holloway, who scored a career-high 26 points in the Green Wave’s most recent game, made two free throws to end his team’s drought.
Mississippi State opened a 17-2 lead and nearly six minutes elapsed before a Tulane player other than Holloway scored. Gregg Glenn III’s basket trimmed the lead to 21-7.
The Green Wave got within 14 points three more times before Matthews made three layups to help the Bulldogs expand the lead to 37-14.
Hubbard scored four straight points and the Bulldogs took their biggest lead of the half at 51-21, but Holloway scored three points during a 9-0 run that got Tulane within 21.
Hubbard, Jeffries and Keshawn Murphy each made a 3-pointer to help the Bulldogs rebuild the lead to 62-34 at halftime.
–Field Level Media