Mississippi State prepares for defensive slugfest against Rutgers

After dispatching one team that leads its conference in scoring defense, Mississippi State will face another on Saturday, this time nearly 1,000 miles from home instead of less than 100.

The Bulldogs (9-2) picked things up after a slow start Sunday in Tupelo to defeat North Texas, one of just seven teams in Division I men’s college basketball allowing fewer than 60 points per game. Rutgers (7-3) is not one of those seven, but the Scarlet Knights are yielding just 60.9 points per contest, the best mark in the Big Ten and the 11th-best in the country, heading into their game against MSU in Newark, N.J.

“I love North Texas and their program and coach (Ross) Hodge and their staff, but … (Rutgers) is going to be bigger, stronger, faster,” Bulldogs head coach Chris Jans said. “It’s going to be a different version of that, but it’s similar in terms of how they want to win. They want to get you into rock fights; they want to get you into some half-court games as best as possible; they want to control the tempo to their favor. They just want to impose their will on you.”

The Scarlet Knights are last in the Big Ten in scoring offense, but their defense has kept them in most games. Clifford Omoruyi leads Rutgers with 11.7 points and 9.2 rebounds per game, and his 3.7 blocks per game are by far the most in the Big Ten and second nationally.

Last year’s Big Ten Co-Defensive Player of the Year, Caleb McConnell, is gone, but Mawot Mag returned earlier this month after missing the final month of last season and the beginning of this season with a torn ACL. Mag finished with 10 points, three assists and two blocks last Saturday in Rutgers’ win over Long Island.

“They’ve got a toughness about them. They play together; they’ve got a core group of guys who have been there and done that for them,” Jans said. “They’ve got great size, they protect the rim at an elite level, they have some dynamic scoring to go along with it, and they’re getting healthy.”

MSU has played the Scarlet Knights just once in program history — a 74-69 loss in November 1999 at a tournament in St. Charles, Mo. The Bulldogs are 2-3 all-time in the state of New Jersey, including a loss to Syracuse in their lone Final Four appearance in 1996.

After Saturday’s game, MSU will take three days off for the players and staff to go their separate ways for Christmas before reconvening on Dec. 27 to prepare for their final non-conference game against Bethune-Cookman on New Year’s Eve.

“We still have a chance to have a nice break, which I’m a big proponent of,” Jans said. “They need to be with their families celebrating Christmas, and equally important from a basketball perspective is just to get away from it a little bit. Get off their legs, rest their bodies and their minds and enjoy the holiday with their families.”

Just eight players saw action for the Bulldogs against the Mean Green as transfer guards Trey Fort and Andrew Taylor and center Gai Chol did not play. Jans said the smaller rotation was not by design, but rather based on the way the game was going, and he substitutes based on feel and suggestions.

Star post player Tolu Smith was cleared to practice with contact last Friday, but still has plenty of work to do before he can take the court in a game for the first time this season. Jans initially prognosticated a mid-January return for Smith, although that timeline could be accelerated considering he is now practicing again.

“I’ve got a target date — today. But unfortunately, I don’t have a vote,” Jans said. “It’s entirely up to the trainers and the doctors and Tolu himself. He’s got a progression that he has to go through. It’s still going to be a while. He’s got a lot of things he has to do. He just got in the shallow end the past couple days prior to the North Texas game. We’ll reconvene today for physical practice… and see where he’s at. There’s no date that I’ve been told yet.”