Missouri
Missouri State basketball wins fifth straight by beating South Carolina State
Matthew Lee turned in a career-high scoring output en route to the Bears coming away with their fifth-straight victory.
Missouri State (5-1) cruised to a 92-74 win over South Carolina State (2-5) on Saturday afternoon at Great Southern Bank Arena. The matchup featured a halftime ceremony to retire Missouri State legend Danny Moore’s jersey.
South Carolina State, which gave Mizzou a challenge on Wednesday night, was never a threat in the game as the Bears scored the game’s first 21 points. The closest the Bulldogs got for the remainder of the game was within eight with 10:47 left.
Lee scored 28 points on 5 of 9 shooting with four makes from deep. Half of his points came from the free-throw line, and he also dished out seven assists.
More: With jersey retirement, Missouri State’s Danny Moore sees it as honor for iconic 1999 team
Donovan Clay was second on the team with 15 points with 10 of them coming from the line. South Carolina State committed 32 fouls in the game with MSU shooting 34 of 43 from the free-throw line.
Defensively, Missouri State held the Bulldogs to 36.8% from the field. The Bears shot 58.5%, including going 70% in the second half.
Missouri State will stay at home for a Wednesday 7 p.m. early-season Missouri Valley Conference matchup with Evansville (6-0) which is off to its best start since 1964. The Purple Aces beat SEMO 93-74 on Saturday.
Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or X at @WyattWheeler_NL. He’s also the host of the weekly “Wyatt’s World Podcast” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms