By Staff
DOUBLE TEAMED n Mississippi State's Robert Jackson (55) gets his shot blocked by LSU's Robert Royal, left, Wednesday night at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville. Photo by AP photo.
From staff, wire reports
Jan. 25, 2001
STARKVILLE LSU shot down its Starkville slump.
Collis Temple scored 27 points and Brian Beshara had 24 as LSU earned its first conference victory of the season with an 82-73 win over Mississippi State on Wednesday night.
The Tigers were 9-for-16 from 3-point range and broke a seven-game losing streak at Humphrey Coliseum.
What a place to come into and win. We've brought better teams here and lost,'' LSU coach John Brady a former Mississippi State assistant said.
Ronald Dupree, the Southeastern Conference's leading scorer, had 14 points and was 8-for-8 from the free-throw line for the Tigers (11-5, 1-4 SEC).
You have got to hand it to our players for understanding and fighting through some adversity,'' Brady said. They kept listening to what we wanted them to do and kept playing hard.''
Mississippi State (10-6, 1-4) has lost four straight SEC games since beating Arkansas in its conference opener.
They shot the basketball well, but we didn't play well in any area,'' Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said. We didn't have any fight. For the first time all season, we laid down, and when we got knocked down, we didn't get up.''
Antonio Jackson led the Bulldogs with 23 points, Robert Jackson had 16 points and Tang Hamilton scored 14.
Beshara began the game with consecutive 3-pointers, and was on his way to shooting 9-for-11 from the field. He hit all four of his 3-point shots and both of his free throws.
Temple was 10-for-18 from the field and 5-for-8 from 3-point range.
The Tigers outrebounded Bulldogs 35-27 and shot just under 55 percent for the game.
Jermaine Williams had 11 points for the Tigers, including a slam dunk that made the score 63-53 with about five minutes left in the game.
Mississippi State had won 12 of the previous 14 meetings with LSU.
LSU's last victory in Starkville was in the 1992-93 season.