KNOXVILLE — Whenever his days as a college basketball coach end, Donnie Tyndall has a future as a television analyst for the sport.
Mississippi State made Tennessee’s first-year coach look like a genius on Tuesday night.
A day after Tyndall called them the Southeastern Conference’s most improved team since the start of league play last month, the Bulldogs overcame a career-high scoring night from Josh Richardson to beat the Volunteers 71-66 at Thompson-Boling Arena, handing Tennessee a third home conference loss in five games.
Tennessee (13-8, 5-4 SEC) trailed for more than 28 minutes of the game, but could have tied it with about a minute left when Derek Reese missed a game-tying dunk.
The long rebound led to a run-out for Mississippi State (11-11, 4-5), and Fred Thomas, who scored 20 points off the bench, converted a three-point play with 51.9 seconds left to extend the lead to 66-61.
Richardson scored 30 points to break his career-high of 26 points against Mercer in the NCAA tournament last season and become the first Tennessee player to crack the 30-point mark since Jordan McRae scored 31 at Missouri last February.
Mississippi State surpassed its SEC win total of last season in just its ninth conference game of the season thanks to Craig Sword’s 26 points. Thomas hit four of his five 3s and was fouled shooting two more to miss tying his career-high by one. The Bulldogs shot 56 percent overall and made eight of their 11 attempts from 3-point range.
The Vols had 26 more shots than the Bulldogs thanks to 20 offensive rebounds and held a 26-12 advantage in scoring in the paint, but Mississippi State hit more free throws (25) than Tennessee attempted (17).
Tennessee’s next game is at Georgia on Saturday.