GAME 25: Ole Miss (15-9, 4-5) vs. Mississippi State (18-6, 5-4)
Thursday 02.12.09 | 8 p.m. CT
Oxford, Miss. | Tad Smith Coliseum (9,061) MEDIA
Live TV: FSS (Rich Waltz, play-by-play; Carol Ross, analyst); ESPN360
Live Radio: (Gary Darby, play-by-play) Listen Online through RebelVision
Live Stats: OleMissSports.com
OXFORD, Miss. After two straight road games, the Ole Miss women’s basketball team returns home to take on in-state rival Mississippi State Thursday night at 8 p.m. from Tad Smith Coliseum in the annual “Tickled Pink at the Tad Pad” game.
Fans are encouraged to wear pink in support of raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses in communities and beyond. In addition, fans who wear pink to the game will automatically be eligible to win great prizes courtesy of Rebel Sports Marketing.
Ole Miss (15-9, 4-5 SEC) enters Thursday’s game coming off a thrilling 66-65 victory over South Carolina that gave the Rebels their first conference road win of the season. Junior forward Elizabeth Robertson hit the game-winning layup with 0.6 seconds remaining to help Ole Miss secure its first win in Columbia since 2004.
Bianca Thomas scored a game-high 20 points and turned in a career-high nine rebounds to lead the Rebels against South Carolina. It was the third straight game and sixth time this season that Thomas has scored at least 20 points. She currently is first on the team and third in the Southeastern Conference with 14.9 points per game. She is also now second on the team with 4.8 rebounds per game.
Senior center Shawn Goff stands second on the team and 10th in conference with 13.3 points per game. Goff and Thomas form the only duo in the SEC from the same school to be ranked in the top-10 in scoring. Goff is also 17th in the SEC with 5.9 rebounds per game and is second in the league and 29th in the nation with 2.3 blocked shots per game. She needs just four more rejections to become only the 15th player in SEC history to have 200 or more career blocked shots.
Mississippi State (18-6, 5-4 SEC) enters Thursday on a two-game winning streak after defeating LSU 65-55 Sunday afternoon in Starkville. Prior to that game, the Lady Bulldogs upset Vanderbilt 66-61 for their first win over the Commodores since 2003. Mississippi State opened the season 11-0 before losing its first game of the season Dec. 30 at Maryland 80-73. Since their 11-0 start however, the Lady Bulldogs have gone just 7-6 overall.
Mississippi State features a trio of Lady Bulldogs who average in double figures. Junior Alexis Rack leads the team with 14.0 points per game and 106 assists (4.4 apg). Rack also shoots 33.2 percent from the three-point line. Junior guard Armelie Lumanu is second on the team in both scoring and rebounding, as she averages 12.0 points per game and 5.8 rebounds per game. Fellow junior Chanel Mokango rounds out the trio of Lady Bulldogs in double figures with her 10.8 points per game. Mokango also ranks first in the SEC and third in the nation with 3.5 blocked shots per game.
Ole Miss and Mississippi State will be meeting for the 77th time when the two teams tip-off Thursday night. The Rebels own a dominating 60-16 record over the Lady Bulldogs in the all-time series that dates back to the 1974-75 season. Earlier this season, however, Mississippi State won the first meeting between the two with a 69-64 victory in Starkville.
The Rebels are 26-6 all-time against Mississippi State in games played in Oxford. In fact, Ole Miss won the first 23 all-time meetings with Mississippi State in Tad Smith Coliseum before its first home loss in the series in 2000. The Lady Bulldogs, however, have won two of the last three games inside Tad Smith Coliseum. Ole Miss will also be looking to prevent Mississippi State from its first season sweep of the Rebels since the 2002-03 season.
