'Double whammy'

One-tenth of a second Sunday was all that separated Mississippi State from the NCAA basketball tournament to tonight's NIT opener against Jackson State.

The pain did not go away Monday.

"I think it's pretty obvious there is a lot of disappointment right now, and there hasn't been a lot of recovery time," MSU coach Rick Stansbury said. "Everybody witnessed the game and realized what a heartbreaker that was. It would have been different had there been one heartbreak but we get in the (NCAA) tournament, because that gets you recovered, but we got a double whammy."

Stansbury's Bulldogs were on the cusp of a second consecutive SEC tournament title when a putback by Kentucky freshman DeMarcus Cousins just before the buzzer sent the game into overtime. MSU wound up losing 75-74, and a second setback was only a couple hours away.

After flying back from Nashville, the Bulldogs sat helplessly in the Starkville airport as they were not included in the NCAA tournament selection show.

"It was hard to get much lower than we were," Stansbury said.

Mississippi State's absence from the 65-team field kept the SEC from a more significant rebound from last year's NCAA tournament, when only three teams were selected and none got past the second round. Kentucky (32-2), Vanderbilt (24-8), Tennessee (25-8) and Florida (21-12) made this year's field, with the Wildcats earning the No. 1 seed in the East Region.

Florida got in as a 10 seed, while Ole Miss (21-10) joined MSU (23-11) in just missing out.

"If Mississippi would have beaten Tennessee (in Friday's SEC quarterfinals), they would have gotten in," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "Mississippi State took us to overtime twice, and we're the No. 2 overall seed in the tournament. I don't know what that means.

"We were in a position to get six teams in, and that's where we wanted to be."

Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl believes the league was hurt by having only three teams in the top 50 of the Ratings Percentage Index.

"The ACC and the Big East and the Big 12 had more teams in the top 50," Pearl said, "so if Florida, Mississippi State and Ole Miss are in the mid 40s instead of the mid 50s, I think it makes a difference. We didn't miss it by much, but this is back-to-back years now.

"Last year, LSU and Tennessee were the only teams in the top 50 of the RPI. It was a factor."

Mississippi State defeated Florida in the SEC quarterfinals, but the Gators won the regular-season meeting. They had identical SEC records (9-7), which said more for Florida considering the Gators had to play Kentucky, Tennessee and Vanderbilt twice.

The Gators also had nonconference wins over Michigan State, last season's NCAA runner-up, and Florida State.

"There was a strong push from us to take our schedule to a different level," Florida coach Billy Donovan said.

Stansbury defended his schedule Monday by pointing out the Bulldogs played eight nonconference games away from Starkville. MSU was hurt by an opening loss to Rider and by wins over UCLA and DePaul, which had subpar seasons.

Ole Miss had a nonconference win over Kansas State, the No. 2 seed in the West Region, but never beat an SEC team with a winning league mark.

"We knew the importance of the game in the quarterfinals against Tennessee," Rebels coach Andy Kennedy said, "and quite frankly, we just didn't get it done."

Odds and ends

The only SEC team making back-to-back trips to the NCAA tournament, Tennessee is in its fifth in a row. ... Florida has the longest current NCAA tournament win streak at 12 games, having won national titles in 2006-07. The Gators played in the NIT the last two years. ... Kentucky's 100 NCAA tournament wins are two shy of North Carolina, which won six straight last year but isn't in this year's field.