Charles Rhodes Earns Player Of The Week Honors

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Spurred by last week’s career-best, 30-point performance against Auburn, Mississippi State senior forward Charles Rhodes has been named the SEC Men’s Basketball Player of the Week. The announcement was made Monday by the league office headquartered in Birmingham.

With his first-ever weekly league honor, Rhodes becomes the third different Bulldog player this season to garner the SEC’s player of the week recognition. Earlier this year, junior all-America candidate Jamont Gordon and sophomore guard Barry Stewart earned the laurel on Jan. 21 and Dec. 31, respectively. Now with three selections on the year, State joins current SEC leader Tennessee as the only two schools to have more than one individual collect the league’s weekly honor this season. The only two previous times that MSU has had three SEC Player of the Week recipients in the same season came during the team’s 2003-04 SEC championship season (Lawrence Roberts-twice & Timmy Bowers) and the club’s 1995-96 Final Four campaign (Darryl Wilson-twice & Erick Dampier).

A preseason All-SEC First Team selection by the league’s head coaches, Rhodes averaged 22.5 points on 63 percent field-goal shooting (17-of-27 FGs) and 71 percent from the line (10-of-14 FTs), along with 8.5 rebounds, for the week in helping lead coach Rick Stansbury’s SEC West Champion Bulldogs to an 89-78 home win over Auburn and a 68-59 road triumph over Florida. The Jackson native began the week by pumping in a career-high 30 points on 11-of-14 shooting from the field and 7-of-8 from the line, in addition to pulling down nine rebounds against Auburn. Rhodes became the first Mississippi State player to score 30 points in a game since Winsome Frazier tallied 30 points against UMKC in 2004-05 and the first to do so for the Bulldogs in an SEC game since Mario Austin scored 30 versus Arkansas in 2001-02. After ranking as the SEC’s third-leading scorer (22.0 ppg) during the month of February behind Vanderbilt’s Shan Foster and Sundiata Gaines of Georgia, Rhodes capped MSU’s 2-0 week and tipped off the month of March by adding 15 points and eight rebounds in Saturday’s nine-point win in Gainesville.

A second-team all-SEC recipient each of the previous two seasons, Rhodes enters the week ranked ninth in the conference in scoring (16.2 ppg), seventh in rebounding (7.4 rpg), sixth in field-goal percentage (.560) and 10th in blocked shots (1.32 bpg) for all games. In league action, the former Jackson Lanier product stands tied for 10th in scoring (16.7 ppg), eighth in rebounding (7.5 rpg), fourth in field-goal percentage (.567) and ninth in blocks (1.31 bpg). Averaging 19.2 points over his last 10 contests, Rhodes also ranks fifth in the SEC with seven double-doubles on the year, including three double-double efforts in his last nine outings. In addition, he has also come up just one rebound shy of posting three more double-doubles (Auburn, at South Carolina & Alabama) and was two boards away at Florida from another double-double during his recent nine-game stretch.

One of two senior players set to be recognized prior to Saturday’s home contest against the LSU Tigers, Rhodes is presently ranked 11th on MSU’s all-time scoring list with 1,317 career points, 14th with 634 career rebounds and sixth with 134 career blocks. He also stands just outside the school’s all-time top-10 leaders for career field-goal percentage (.560), which includes a school-record 166 career dunks (51 this season).

Via Athletic Media Relations