Mississippi State men's basketball took down Missouri in Columbia on Saturday to earn the first road win of the season.
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00:00 Obviously you had issues on the road for various reasons in these past games, but
00:04 it felt like tonight was the first time you guys really put your brand on
00:07 basketball and kind of put that new basketball on the game.
00:10 Why did you feel like that was such a difference?
00:14 >> It was obviously hard to win in this league, regardless of where you're playing.
00:17 There's so many good coaches and players, etc.
00:21 Certainly harder on the road and
00:23 we just weren't able to put 40 minutes together in our previous tries.
00:27 And we talked a lot about it.
00:29 I told the team I was tired of hearing about it, tired of talking about it,
00:33 that we needed to overcome that hurdle tonight and take care of it.
00:37 And they did.
00:38 >> Go to this gentleman here, front row.
00:40 >> Yeah, coach, the 24 turnovers tonight,
00:43 what went into the defensive approach going against Mississippi?
00:47 >> We were trying to kind of get back to our baseline.
00:50 And last year's team was one of the better teams at turning people over.
00:54 And we generated a lot of offense off our defense.
00:56 And our offensive numbers are better this year.
00:59 And it's almost like we got away from who we need to be and how we need to play.
01:04 And so we've talked a lot and tried to get them a little more revved up on the ball.
01:09 And dictating a little bit more on the ball and trying to speed people up.
01:12 And with the idea of hopefully scoring off our defense.
01:16 And fortunately tonight we were able to do that.
01:18 >> Back to Justin Cook.
01:20 >> Shaq, obviously with those four mid three pointers and
01:22 over the last five games all double digits.
01:25 What do you see in terms of confidence wise when he's able to pick it up?
01:30 >> Well, locally there always was a lot of talk.
01:32 Who is there gonna be our third scorer?
01:34 We talked about different candidates.
01:36 And that was always the first person that I brought up was Shaquille Moore.
01:40 That he had the capability, the experience, the skill level in order to do it.
01:44 And I was just talking with one of the coaches in practice yesterday or
01:48 the day before saying that it'd be a shame if Shaq didn't get his practice into
01:53 the game because he's been shooting the cover off the ball in practice.
01:56 And we were just kind of fingers crossed that it would translate to the game.
01:59 And it did.
02:00 His confidence is through the roof right now and the whole team knows it.
02:03 And we started running stuff for him.
02:05 Where normally we would run it for Josh.
02:07 But tonight we were running stuff to get Shaq shots.
02:09 >> Anything else for coach?
02:12 Go back to Justin.
02:13 >> You said it once the night after the Georgia game that you told the guys at
02:16 the beginning of the weekend this had to be a two and O.
02:18 You could prevent a take on that challenge without a starting player.
02:23 You could be an injury.
02:24 But what do you think you learned about the guys this weekend?
02:27 >> Yeah, it was our rallying cry.
02:28 Obviously, we said it with some perspective that we were totally focused on Georgia.
02:35 Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday.
02:37 But at the same time, we kind of set the week's itinerary up, if you will.
02:41 And that we needed to go two and O for a bunch of different reasons.
02:46 One, which we've talked about with the lack of road wins on our resume,
02:51 or whatever you want to call it.
02:52 And so, I'm just happy for them.
02:55 I'm proud of them.
02:56 They were focused.
02:57 Our huddles were really good.
02:59 They've stuck together and they celebrated it just a few minutes ago.
03:05 >> Well, directly in front of you, coach in the black.
03:07 >> Tolu and Jimmy are knowingly strong presences on the interior, but
03:10 they grabbed about, I think, over half your rebounds tonight.
03:13 Just over half your rebounds tonight.
03:14 What did you think of their performance, especially on the glass?
03:17 >> We felt going in that we had a physical advantage around the basket.
03:23 And one of the things we talked about was owning the paint.
03:27 One of those things that's easy to say, hard to do.
03:29 But we feel like we're best when we play inside out and
03:33 try to win the rebounding battles that happen each and every game.
03:36 But Jimmy and Tolu are veterans and they've got a physical presence about them.
03:41 And it always helps when there's some balls like that.
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