NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Jacob Crews nailed a contested 3-pointer in the face of Mississippi State basketball’s Cameron Matthews. The Missouri forward gave Matthews a quick stare down as he jogged back down the court. 

Ten seconds later, Mississippi State’s Josh Hubbard drilled a 3-pointer while drawing a foul on Crews. The four-point play gave the Bulldogs a one-point lead with 4:52 remaining in Thursday’s SEC tournament second-round game at Bridgestone Arena. 

But that was the last field goal No. 10 seed MSU made in almost four and a half minutes. There were 17 ties and nine lead changes in the game, but MSU (21-12) never led again after Hubbard’s free throw. Mississippi State’s offense spiraled in the final minutes in the 85-73 loss to No. 7 Missouri (22-10).

“Would definitely like to have those last four minutes back,” MSU third-year coach Chris Jans said. “Obviously, it doesn’t work that way. It was winning time, and we didn’t play well in winning time. That’s the bottom line, is they played better than we did.”

What Chris Jans said went wrong for Mississippi State’s offense

The Bulldogs, who are still expected to make the NCAA tournament, only committed one turnover late in the second half, but they missed seven straight shots after Hubbard’s go-ahead free throw. 

The Tigers produced a 14-3 run to jump ahead 81-71 with 31 seconds remaining. 

The only MSU points came from RJ Melendez and KeShawn Murphy free throws. 

“It’s one of those games where there’s so many pivotal plays,” Jans said. “I’m looking forward, I guess in a weird way, to watch the last five minutes to lock into it a little bit better. I remember we had it at the rim a couple times and weren’t able to finish it. I thought we had at least one or two pretty good looks at 3 when we were up, and could have gotten it to five I think and had some momentum.”

Josh Hubbard said Mississippi State defense could’ve been better too

Missouri scored 18 points in the final 4:52 of the game. It shot 9-of-11 from the free-throw line in that stretch. The three field goals were all layups or dunks.

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“It was just a bad stretch for us and a good stretch for them,” Hubbard, who scored 24 points, said. “They just executed good offensively. They got us on the back door one time with Caleb Grill. We just had some defensive errors.”

Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.