Mississippi State Basketball: 3 reasons why the Bulldogs will win the SEC

Diminished comparative expectations could lead to a surprise season from the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the SEC in 2018-19.

Mississippi State doesn’t get their due most of the time. The Bulldogs went 25-12 last season, marching all the way to the NIT semifinals. There, they fell to the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Heading into Ben Howland’s fourth season in charge, it still feels as if the Bulldogs aren’t getting their due. They’re expected to be a team that competes for an NCAA Tournament bid, but their hype fails to come close to matching that surrounding Kentucky and Tennessee. That’s a major mistake.

This season will mark a decade since the last time the Bulldogs made the NCAA Tournament. Mississippi State hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2008 and hasn’t made it to the Sweet Sixteen since 1996. At least one of those things should change this season, if not more. But first Mississippi State will need to take care of business in the SEC.

In our most recent batch of SEC rankings (from June), Mississippi State was slotted to finish in fifth place in the conference. Here are three reasons the Bulldogs will do better than that fifth place projection and win the SEC.