Game Recap: Telfort And Brooks Lead Dawgs Over The Dogs In Arizona

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TEMPE, Ariz. — The Arizona sun appears to be shining brightly on what we may be able to expect from the rest of the Butler Bulldogs season. On a late Friday night out west the Dawgs were able to beat the #25 Mississippi State Bulldogs 87-77, winning the Arizona Tip-Off championship in the process.

After hanging together trading the lead several times in the first half, a 3-pointer from Jahmyl Telfort with 5:40 to play in the first half sparks a small run for the Dawgs that would give them the lead permanently.

Butler outscored Mississippi State 19 to 11 in the final five minutes of the first half taking a 40-34 lead to halftime.

Telfort and Pierre Brooks continued to dominate the game in every phase from the start of the second half onward. Telfort hit two 3-point shots to open the second half extending the Butler lead. Brooks would get hot in the middle of the half hitting a 3-pointer and a mid-range jumper.

The 3-point shooting, as you could probably tell, was the lynchpin of the day as Butler shot 54% (12-of-22) from behind the arc, and 52% total for the evening. Mississippi State had no answer for the hot Butler shooting as they only made 37% of their shots.

In fact, Mississippi State only hit 26 of 69 shots taken. Butler won the day taking 16 fewer shots than Mississippi State. That’s even with the valiant efforts of the likes of Riley Kugel and Josh Hubbard for Mississippi State, both of whom scored 22 points.

At the end of the day, Telfort finished with 24 points. Brooks added 22 to go along with nine rebounds in a near-double-double performance. Landon Moore also had his best game of the season knocking home 13 points off the bench.

You can now call It a healthy winning streak the Bulldogs are on as they have won five in a row since their crushing loss to Austin Peay at the beginning of the month.

Sitting 6-and-1 on the year so far, the slate becomes more challenging for them as they enter the month of December. Four of their next six opponents are ranked in the AP Top 25. They begin that slate, however, against Eastern Illinois in the friendly confines of Hinkle Fieldhouse on December 3rd.

Game Recap: Telfort And Brooks Lead Dawgs Over The Dogs In Arizona was originally published on wibc.com