Mississippi State Basketball adds key transfers Garrison Brooks and DJ Jeffries

After barely missing out on a trip to Indianapolis to play in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, Mississippi State Basketball followed that up with a postseason run to the NIT Tournament Championship Game. After building momentum for the program in the 2020-21 postseason, the Bulldogs have carried that momentum into the offseason as well.

Mississippi State Basketball finished 9th in the SEC last season at 8-10 in conference play, but when looking at the Bulldogs roster going into next season, the talent is 100% there for a big bounce-back 2021-22 season.

The Bulldogs are set to return all three of their top leading scorers from this past season in guards Iverson Molinar and DJ Stewart Jr, as well as forward Tolu Smith, each of whom averaged over 12+ PPG. Mississippi State will also return a few other notable players including Derek Fountain, Quinten Post, Cameron Matthews, and Javian Davis, but the two players added this past week could help catapult the Bulldogs back around the top of the SEC.

Head coach Ben Howland picked up two massive additions through the NCAA Transfer Portal which started late last week with the addition of North Carolina senior forward Garrison Brooks.

Brooks started in over 100+ games for the Tar Heels during his four years in Chapel Hill where he averaged 9.6 PPG and 6 RPG on 52.8% shooting from the field during that time. Brooks’ best work at North Carolina also arguably came during the 2019-20 season where he averaged career-highs with 16.8 PPG and 8.5 RPG while being named the 2019-20 ACC Most Improved Player and selected to the All-ACC Second-Team.

While the addition of Brooks would’ve been enough to potentially jump Mississippi State up the ranks in the SEC next season, the Bulldogs added to it on Monday afternoon as they picked up Memphis transfer forward DJ Jeffries.

Jeffries, a sophomore, spent his first two seasons at Memphis where he averaged 10.3 PPG and 4.8 RPG. While his shooting percentages went down during his sophomore season, Jeffries is a former Top 50 recruit who has plenty of talent and could be due for a break-out campaign next season with the Bulldogs.

Mississippi State Basketball’s biggest roster concern of the offseason was to replace veteran forward Abdul Ado, and with the additions of Brooks and Jeffries, they’ve easily surpassed it. The Bulldogs will now display potentially one of the strongest starting lineups in the SEC next season in Molinar, Stewart Jr, Jeffries, Smith, and Brooks.

While they will still need to add to their roster depth, these additions combined with returning talent appear to have the Bulldogs set to return to the top half of what should be the deeply talented SEC once again next season.