JACKSON – For at least one night, Charles Rhodes made Mississippi State fans forget all about former Bulldog greats like Lawrence Roberts and Mario Austin.

The 6-foot-8 Rhodes pounded Jacksonville State, dominating the lane with a monster game with 24 points and 18 rebounds in the Bulldogs’ 104-80 throttling of the Gamecocks Thursday night at the Mississippi Coliseum.

Five of Rhodes’ seven made field goals were dunks. The Lanier High grad, who spent most of his prep career at Forest High School, was also deft at the line making all 10 of his free throws.

&#8220It really started last game, but I got in foul trouble and had to sit down,” Rhodes said. &#8220After that game I got focused, and now I’m focused and am ready to have a breakout season.”

For Jacksonville State forward Courtney Bradley, it was too much Rhodes and too many other big Bulldogs like 7-foot-2 center Wesley Morgan and 6-9 battering rams Vernon Goodrich and Poitr Stelmach.

&#8220Charles is a very good player,” said Bradley, who played at Raymond High School, graduating in 2001. &#8220I used to see him at Lanier, playing. He’s a skilled player. He’s going to be great for them.”

MSU coach Rick Stansberry certainly hopes so.

&#8220Our big guys stepped up, especially Charles Rhodes,” Stansberry said. &#8220Tonight was a career night for him. He’s a sophomore who didn’t play a lot last year. We just need him to get consistent.

&#8220When he scores like this, it makes his rebounding better and tonight he rebounded and scored.”

He also made things difficult for the 6-foot-5 Bradley on offense. Bradley, who was the Mississippi Junior College Player of the Year at Itawamba Community College last year, was coming off two strong games in Jacksonville State’s Ohio Valley Conference openers against Samford and Tennessee Martin.

&#8220It was tough for Courtney, going up against a 6-9 and a 7-2 and he’s only 6-5, but he kept battling,” said Jacksonville State coach Mike LaPlante. &#8220State’s size forced him to change the angles on his shot. He was constantly having to go over mountains.”

Bradley still produced a double-double, scoring 13 points with 10 rebounds. But it wasn’t enough to stem the four-pronged attack led by Rhodes.

Morgan finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds while Goodridge and Stelmach had 11 points each. In all, the four big men combined for 61 points and keyed State’s overwhelming 56-31 advantage on the boards.

The Gamecocks (4-3) forced the issue from the start. They elected to press the Bulldogs (7-2), who had to go without injured starting point guard Jamall Edmonson.

Edmondson’s replacement, Richard Delk, scored 12 points and committed just four turnovers against a variety of different presses from the Gamecocks. State also got 10 points from Dietric Slater, who gave the Bulldogs their key energy boost late in the first half.

Jacksonville State had taken its biggest lead of the game at 42-36 when Slater keyed a 10-1 run to close out the half. Slater had six points in the run to hand State a 46-43 halftime lead.

Rhodes and his beefy bullies did the rest in the second half. They went up 12 within the first four minutes of the half and then withstood one last charge by the Gamecocks that cut it to 68-61 with 11:58 left.