STARKVILLE — Fresh off its run to the semifinals of the National Invitational Tournament (NIT), the Mississippi State men’s basketball team will face another challenging Southeastern Conference schedule in coach Ben Howland’s fourth year leading the program.
MSU will have home-and-home matchups against Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, Ole Miss, and South Carolina. It also will have home games against Florida, LSU, Missouri, and Texas A&M and games at Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt.
“It’s a different schedule this year with playing Kentucky and Auburn twice,” Howland said. “This league has some really, really good teams, and that is going to create a lot of challenges. But this will be great for our program and players. We’re excited and thrilled to have one of the toughest schedules in the SEC.”
Five SEC schools — Kentucky No. 3, Tennessee No. 5, Auburn No. 11, LSU No. 21, and MSU No. 22 — are ranked in ESPN.com’s Way Too Early Top 25, while 20 of the ESPN.com top 100 recruits have signed with SEC schools.
In all, the SEC boasts six of ESPN.com’s Top 25 in-coming recruiting classes.
The SEC is coming off a season in which a record eight teams participated in the 2018 NCAA tournament.
MSU, which returns all five starters from a year ago and has a top-10 incoming recruiting class, finished seventh in league play last season with a 9-9 ledger.
Ole Miss will battle Arkansas, Auburn, Georgia, MSU, and Missouri in home-and-home series. It also will play host to Kentucky, LSU, Tennessee, and Texas A&M in The Pavilion at Ole Miss and play at Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt.
Ole Miss will kick off its 16-game home schedule Nov. 10 when it plays host to Western Michigan.
Alabama will play home-and-home conference games against Auburn, LSU, MSU, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt. It also will play home games against Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Ole Miss and games at Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Alabama welcomes back three of its top four scorers and returns three starters and nine letterwinners from last season’s 20-16 squad that reached the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Alabama also will welcome transfer Tevin Mack, who came from Texas prior to the 2017-18 season and will be eligible to play in 2018-19 after sitting out last year due to NCAA transfer rules.
Dates, times and TV will be announced later for all of the games.
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