The University of Mississippi Athletics
Moody's Career Night Lifts Ole Miss Past MSU
2/19/2015 | Men's Basketball, Blog
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- The game hung in the balance.
Mississippi State had just regained a 54-52 lead with 6:25 left, taking advantage of a 6-0 run. Head coach Andy Kennedy challenged his team, and junior guard Stefan Moody answered the bell.
"Coach was looking for somebody to step up and make some plays," Moody said. "I told him I wanted the ball, and he gave it to me."
As part of a 9-3 run, the junior from Kissimmee, Florida, knocked down three straight 3-pointers, his sixth, seventh and eighth of the game, all from around the same spot on the floor, on the wing nearest the Ole Miss bench.
The spurt turned a two-points deficit into a four-point lead, and the Rebels did not trail the rest of the game on the way to a 71-65 win on Thursday night at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville.
"I challenged guys in the huddle, and he was the only guy who responded," head coach Andy Kennedy said. "He was the only guy who even showed a pulse, so we ran action through him. He made one, and you know me well enough that if you make one, I'm going to see if you make seven, and he made three straight huge ones."
Moody finished with a career-high 29 points and knocked down a career-high eight 3-pointers, joining Marshall Henderson, Chris Warren and Keith Carter for second place in school history, two shy of Henderson's school record, set last season against Oregon.
The Rebels' leading scorer, Moody has been on a tear in recent games, averaging 20.0 points over his last six games, a stretch that has included SEC Player of the Week honors, a game-winning 3-pointer at Florida, and now a career high at Mississippi State.
"He's starting to accept the role as our go-to guy," Kennedy said. "That's difficult for a guy to do right out of the gate, especially for a guy who had not played at this level. He's much more comfortable understanding that we're going to go to him in those situations.
"When he gets it going, again eight big 3-pointers for us tonight, he's difficult to stay in front of."
The win gave Ole Miss its first win in Starkville since 2009 and its first season sweep of Mississippi State since 1998. More importantly, the Rebels, ranked No. 38 in the latest RPI released by the NCAA, avoided a loss to the Bulldogs, ranked No. 180 NCAA RPI.
"Mississippi State is much better than their numbers," Kennedy said. "Their RPI is the lowest in the SEC, borderline 200. This is one of the games, as difficult as it is to come in here and win, where it doesn't give you the pop from a numbers standpoint.
"I think our team has passed the eye test. It has. Now, our numbers have to makes sense. That's why this game was so important, to keep our numbers moving forward."
