Mississippi State coach Ben Howland and players discuss beating Louisville and moving on to the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Wochit
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Aric Holman wanted to come home. The Mississippi State Bulldogs wanted to go back on the road.
Both parties got want they wanted Tuesday night, with the Kentucky-bred Holman providing a huge boost off the bench as fourth-seeded MSU rolled to a 79-56 win over the third-seeded Louisville Cardinals in front of 10,718 frigid fans at the KFC YUM! Center.
Mississippi State (25-11) advances to next Tuesday's semifinals against Penn State (24-13), which upended Marquette in an earlier quarterfinal Tuesday. Louisville, playing under interim coach David Padgett, finishes the season 24-13. Both NIT semifinals and the championship will be played at legendary Madison Square Garden in New York.
In order to make that happen, coach Ben Howland's Bulldogs had to win two road games against power-five conference teams in less than 72 hours.
"I can't say enough about our entire team and just how hard they worked to prepare for this," Howland said. "We wanted to go to New York City and go to the Garden — badly. And they displayed that in how they played today."
The Weatherspoon siblings, junior guard Quinndary and freshman guard Nick, combined for 31 points for MSU, which earned its first 25-win campaign since it won 26 games in 2003-04. Quinndary had a game-high 19 points and a game-best 14 rebounds, while Nick had 12 points on 6-of-9 shooting.
"To get 14 rebounds in a game in just 26 minutes, that's pretty impressive," Howland said of the elder Weatherspoon.
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