FAYETTEVILLE -- Ready or not the Mississippi State Bulldogs host Arkansas in tonight's Southeastern Conference rematch at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville, Miss.
Tipoff between coach Mike Anderson's Razorbacks, 12-11 overall and 5-5 in the SEC, and first-year Mississippi State coach Ben Howland's Bulldogs, 9-13, 2-8, is 8 o'clock on the SEC Network (Resort Channel 79).
Because of an ailing back, I.J. Ready, Mississippi State's junior point guard from Little Rock Parkview, missed the Bulldogs' 88-77 loss to league leader LSU Saturday in Baton Rouge, La.
"I'm not sure," Howland said on Monday's SEC teleconference regarding Ready's availability vs. Arkansas. "It was a back situation. An upper back for him. And I didn't know he wasn't going to be able to play (against LSU) until literally we were doing the starting five introductions."
Ready was missed, Mississippi State senior big man Gavin Ware said after the loss to LSU.
"It was a pretty big deal not having that quickness and that ability to pull up at the free-throw line and give us the two points we needed," Ware said.
Ready dished seven assists helping senior guard Craig Sword score 21 and Ware tally 14 when Arkansas hosted the Bulldogs on Jan. 9 at Walton Arena.
The Ready-Ware-Sword trio compiled nice stats but not nearly enough to offset Arkansas' 82-68 victory.
Razorbacks guards Dusty Hannahs and Anthlon Bell scoring 26 and 25 points excelled as did big man Moses Kingsley, tallying 13 points, and eight rebounds and blocking four shots. Senior point guard Jabril Durham was "all over the place," Anderson said, dishing 12 assists against two turnovers while making six steals, scoring 10 points and grabbing four rebounds.
Arkansas hit an incredible 16 of 24 threes on the Bulldogs in Fayetteville, creating a deceptive final score, Anderson said.
"It was a three-point game with five minutes to go and all of a sudden we make three or four threes and boom!," Anderson said. "Before you know it a game that was pretty close kind of explodes a little bit."
Sword, "he had a monster game against us," Anderson said, Ware and Malik Newman, Mississippi State's freshman McDonald's All-American, all can explode on anyone at any time, Anderson said.
The Hogs and Dogs, Anderson said, are "improved" team since they last met.
Arkansas comes off perhaps its most complete game of the season, throttling Tennessee 85-67 Saturday at Walton Arena.
"We've got our hands full," Howland said. "Arkansas had a great win in their last outing against Tennessee, and Tennessee had been playing really well, having just defeated Kentucky. It's a tough matchup from the standpoint that they're very athletic, a very good motion team offensively. And as everyone knows (they) thrive on pressure and really try to get into you defensively."
Other than losing to Kentucky, that formula has worked for Arkansas' SEC games this season at Walton, but the Hogs are 1-4 on the SEC road.
So is Mississippi State with the common denominator that both won at last-place Missouri.
Only at Texas A&M, a loss that Arkansas avenged in a rematch at Walton, were the Hogs blown out. Arkansas led late but lost 76-74 at LSU and 87-83 at Florida and 76-73 in overtime at Georgia.
In all its road games, the opponent has attempted more free throws than Arkansas, especially the 7 of 11 vs. 17 of 32 deficits costing Arkansas at LSU and the 15 of 20 vs. 30 of 36 at Florida.
"You do the math," Anderson said. "You are not going to win many games doing that."
Yet even with those deficits, they stayed competitive to the end.
"We have played well on the road, just not well enough to win," Anderson said. "But I think our guys are still coming in with the same mindset of putting themselves in position to win. If we can clean up those areas of putting people on the line and play defense, really good defense, and continue to be efficient offensively, I think we will be fine."
Kingsley, benched the first six minutes of the Tennessee game as a reminder not to get slapped with a technical foul like against Florida, should start tonight, Anderson said.
Arkansas (12-11, 5-5) PPG RPG
C-Moses Kingsley 6-10 Jr. 16.4 9.2
G-Jabril Durham 6-1 Sr. 6.3 3.3
G-Dusty Hannahs 6-3 Jr. 17.0 2.4
G-Anthlon Bell 6-3 Sr. 16.5 3.1
G-Manny Watkins 6-3 Jr. 5.8 3.3
Mississippi State (9-13, 2-8)
F-Travis Daniels 6-7 Sr. 6.6 4.1
F-Gavin Ware 6-9 Sr. 16.2 7.1
G-Q. Weatherspoon 6-4 Fr. 10.7 4.5
G-Malik Newman 6-3 Fr. 13.1 3.0
G-Craig Sword 6-3 Sr. 12.5 3.0
G-I.J. Ready 5-11 Jr. 10.1 2.8
Sports on 02/09/2016