{"id":22343,"date":"2015-02-20T08:14:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T13:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=22343"},"modified":"2015-03-06T15:39:12","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T20:39:12","slug":"moody-madness-junior-explodes-for-29-in-71-65-victory-over-mississippi-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/moody-madness-junior-explodes-for-29-in-71-65-victory-over-mississippi-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Moody Madness: Junior explodes for 29 in 71-65 victory over Mississippi State"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ole<\/a>
Ole Miss Junior Stefan Moody had 6 rebounds, 4 steals, and 29 points against Mississippi State, including 8 three pointers. Photograph by Newt Rayburn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stefan Moody<\/strong> started shooting. And the threes kept dropping.\u00a0 He finished with a career high 29 points with 23 coming in the second half as Ole Miss defeated Mississippi State 71-65 Thursday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moody was the only Rebel player who scored in double digits and he scored 40 percent of Ole Miss\u2019<\/strong> total points.\u00a0The junior led the Rebels in rebounds and steals as well, registering six and four, respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI challenged guys in the huddle and he [Moody] was the only guy who responded, which is kind of sad,\u201d Head Coach Andy Kennedy<\/strong> said. \u201cHe was the only guy who showed a pulse and we ran one and he made it. If you know me you know that if you make one ill give back to you to see if you can make seven.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Moody made eight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ole Miss (18-8, 9-4)<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0went into Thursday night with high tournament hopes. Mississippi State’s<\/strong> RPI 0f 172 could have been another “bad loss” come Selection Sunday, but Ole Miss was able to rally behind its star player and complete the sweep of the Bulldogs for the first time since 1999. It was also only the second win at Starkville in the Kennedy era.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"11-IMG_8267\"<\/a>
Andy Kennedy was all smiles after Ole Miss defeated Mississippi State 71-65 on Thursday in Starkville. Photograph by Newt Rayburn.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMississippi State is much better than their numbers, as difficult as it is to come in here and win it doesn\u2019t give you the pop from a numbers standpoint,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cI think our team has passed the eye test, now our numbers have to make sense that is why this game is so important.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Old demons returned in the first half as Ole Miss was out rebounded 24-11, a problem many thought had been resolved since the beginning of the season. On top of rebounding poorly Ole Miss shot 35.7 percent from the field and leading scorer Stefan Moody only had six points. Despite this all, Ole Miss was only down 27-32 after the first half.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kennedy clearly had a few choice words at half time, and Ole Miss came out on fire. They started the second half with an eight to two rebounding advantage and gained a 39-34 advantage after the first couple minutes of second half play.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got to do a better job on the glass, they just crushed us early off the offensive glass,\u201d he said. \u201cThen in the second half we were plus eight on rebounds and shot 50 percent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\u201cCan\u2019t<\/a>
\u201cCan\u2019t get over this loss,\u201d said Mississippi State guard Craig Sword. \u201cIt is a rivalry; it is hard to get over a rivalry game.\u201d Photograph by Newt Rayburn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second half dominance continued as Ole Miss led for the majority of the period.\u00a0Then, Moody went into video game mode and hit back to back to back three pointers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just going to jump as high as I can,\u201d said Ole Miss guard Moody. \u201cIf you want to block it [his shot] you can jump with me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was also Moody who sealed the game tonight. Moody hit two free throws with fourteen seconds left to make it a two possession game and give the Rebels the 71-65 win.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t get over this loss,\u201d said Mississippi State guard Craig Sword<\/strong>. \u201cIt is a rivalry; it is hard to get over a rivalry game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Moody disagrees.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m new so to me it [the rivalry] doesn\u2019t mean much of anything,\u201d\u00a0he said.\u00a0\u201cI just want to win.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ole Miss has a short turnaround as they host Tennessee<\/strong> on Saturday.\u00a0Tennessee is 14-11 on the season and a still fighting for bubble spot in the NCAA tournament. Tip off is set for 6:30 pm and will carried by ESPNU<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Complete stats from the game can be found here: Moody Madness <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ole<\/a>
Ole Miss Forward M.J. Rhett had a monster dunk in Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville. Photograph by Newt Rayburn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ole<\/a>
Ole Miss Guard Stefan Moody was knocking them down left and right Thursday night in Starkville, even when he a hand in the face from Mississippi State Guard Craig Sword. Photograph by Newt Rayburn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stefan Moody started shooting. And the threes kept dropping.\u00a0 He finished with a career high 29 points with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":22351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4614,89,2431,5144,5203,1644,15,7067,5501,700,4620,4615,2676],"class_list":["post-22343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ole-miss","tag-andy-kennedy","tag-basketball","tag-bulldogs","tag-craig-sword","tag-m-j-rhett","tag-mississippi-state","tag-newt-rayburn","tag-ole-miss","tag-ole-miss-vs-mississippi-state","tag-rebels","tag-stefan-moody","tag-taylor-rayburn","tag-tennessee"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/2015-02-19-StefanMoody.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}