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Mississippi State head coach Rick Ray apologizes for cursing at Marshall Henderson

Rick Ray

With 6.3 seconds remaining, Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson exited the floor with the Rebels holding a sizable lead over in-state rival Mississippi State.

Henderson headed to the bench jawing it up, whether it was to his teammates or two his opponents I’m not sure. Either way Mississippi State head coach Rick Ray wasn’t pleased and let Henderson know it. I’ll let you all guess as to what he said.

Following Mississippi State’s 82-63 loss on the road at Ole Miss, Ray issued a statement, apologizing to Henderson for his actions. The statement, sent from the coach’s Instagram account read:

“I responded inappropriately to an Ole Miss player yesterday in our game. I reached out to Coach Kennedy immediately to apologize and subsequently to the player too. There is no reason for a coach to ever have interaction with an opposing player, ever, regardless of he circumstances. I was upset more with our performance than the player, I was totally at fault.”

Ray is right, he was at fault, but it was a classy gesture to acknowledge his mistake and offering an apology. And it did seem likely that he was more frustrated with his team than with Henderson. But let’s face it, Henderson is a pretty easy person to direct your frustration toward. Ironically, this incident between Henderson and an SEC opponent came almost to the day of his infamous interaction with the Auburn fan section last year.

Hopefully this doesn’t overshadow the work Ray has done with the Bulldogs. In his second season, Mississippi State currently has three more wins this season than it had in the entire 2012-2013 campaign.

Mississippi State and Ole Miss split the season series this year.

Follow @terrence_payne