STARKVILLE — Chris Jans would have preferred not to need Cameron Matthews on Sunday.

Mississippi State’s head coach said the fifth-year senior forward has been dealing with a foot injury for “weeks,” and that Matthews had not touched a basketball since Wednesday night’s win over Pittsburgh. But with the Bulldogs chasing the lead for almost the entire first half against Prairie View A&M, Jans broke glass in case of emergency and inserted Matthews into the game.

Matthews looked hobbled at times but played nearly all of the second half as MSU rallied for a 91-84 win over the scrappy Panthers after trailing by as many as 15 points early. He and the Bulldogs will have five days off before taking the court again Saturday against McNeese in Tupelo.

“I didn’t want to necessarily play him, but he was going to be available if we thought we needed him to win this game,” Jans said. “We decided to make the decision, and he certainly had a big impact on the game. He changed the tenor of the game at the end of the first half and the minutes he played in the second half.”

Prairie View entered Sunday with the worst scoring defense among 355 Division I teams, allowing 98.5 points per game. MSU (8-1) had just 14 points 10 minutes into the game and missed 11 of their first 16 shots before finding their rhythm.

The far bigger issue for the Bulldogs, though, was on the defensive end. The Panthers (1-8) made six straight shots early in the game and used a 13-0 run to build a 27-12 lead as MSU’s defensive intensity from its blowout of Pitt four days earlier was nowhere to be found. Prairie View made 56.4 percent of its shots for the game and finished 10-for-19 from 3-point range.

“It was not a very good performance defensively,” Jans said. “They have good players, and when you give good players confidence, anything can happen. Some of it was that, some of it was just guys not being where they should be positionally. The early success they had against us gave their team confidence, gave their staff confidence, and they rode that.”

The Bulldogs gradually reeled the Panthers back in over the last 10 minutes of the first half. A Josh Hubbard 3-pointer cut the MSU deficit to two with just more than a minute left, and Claudell Harris Jr.’s baseline jumper tied the game going into the break.

Hubbard shook off a slow start and led all scorers with 25 points, while Harris had 21 on 6-for-9 shooting. Each finished with 16 second-half points, including seven apiece during a 14-1 run that turned a one-point deficit into a 12-point Bulldogs lead.

“I have a lot of talented teammates,” Harris said. “I see them work hard day in and day out, so (it’s about) trusting that they’re going to make plays for themselves, make plays for me. I’m just focusing on the defense, and it came to me tonight.”

Shawn Jones Jr., making his fourth start of the season, had 11 points, and Michael Nwoko and RJ Melendez added 10 each. Nwoko recorded his second straight double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds in just 16 minutes. Matthews, after checking in for the first time with four minutes and 10 seconds left in the first half, ended up playing 22 minutes and finished with six points, seven rebounds and six assists.

MSU overcame a trio of strong offensive performances from Prairie View — Nick Anderson had 21 points, Tanahj Pettaway added 20 and was 4-for-5 from distance, and Marcel Bryant chipped in with 19. Panthers starting post player Ryan Bolton Jr., though, fouled out with nearly 16 minutes remaining in the second half.

Last season on an early December Sunday afternoon, the Bulldogs blew a late 11-point lead and lost to SWAC member Southern, but this year’s group managed to avoid a bad loss at the same juncture of the season.

“(We were) just trying to do anything we can to help each other win and not giving up,” Jones said. “Last year, we gave up and we thought it was going to be a cakewalk. We came in this year and did the same thing. We just had a different mindset toward the end of the game, and that was just staying together, sticking together, and playing our basketball.”

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