Welcome to another Southeastern Conference basketball tournament, otherwise known as Mississippi State’s time of year.
Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury directs his team during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Tennessee Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011 in Knoxville, Tenn. Mississippi State won 70-69. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)No team has been more successful in recent SEC tournaments than Rick Stansbury’s Bulldogs, who are alone in reaching the semifinals each of the past four years. Mississippi State won the 2009 title over Tennessee and lost by a point in overtime to Kentucky in last year’s finale, and the Bulldogs will enter the Georgia Dome this week with momentum and a favorable bracket.
“A lot of guys here were part of both of those teams,” Stansbury said. “One year we had to win four games and one year we had to win three. These guys remember that, and we will talk about what we’ve done.
“We don’t have to be the best team for 16 games anymore. We’ve just got to be the best team for three games.”
The Bulldogs are the only team that will head to Atlanta on a three-game winning streak, and they enter for a third straight year with the predicament of having to claim the SEC tournament to reach the NCAA tournament. They are 17-13 overall and 112th in the Ratings Percentage Index after enduring a calamitous start that included the academic ineligibility of point guard Dee Bost and the haunting Christmas Eve fight between forwards Renardo Sidney and Elgin Bailey in Honolulu.