Arizona State vs Mississippi State: 2023-24 college basketball game preview

Arizona State and Mississippi State will clash to begin their seasons in a non-conference matchup in Chicago. Here is the matchup broken down.

The PAC-12 and SEC collide as the Arizona State Sun Devils and Mississippi State Bulldogs travel to Chicago for a non-conference season opener for both squads. They’ll met at Wintrust arena in Chicago for the Barstool Sports Invitational.

This is one of those matchups with teams in very similar situations and states as programs. Both teams finished well over .500 but could not get past the top-heavy teams in their respective conferences.

These programs have only met twice before with the Sun Devils winning both games. The last matchup was a 72-67 victory for Arizona State over a No. 15 Mississippi State back in 2018

Mississippi State put together a 21-13 campaign but finished 8-10 in conference play before being knocked out of the first four by Pittsburgh. This was an impressive year in the first season of head coach Chris Jans who helped them hold teams to 61 points per game, the lowest for this program since 2002-2003.

They miss one of their stars, Tolu Smith with a foot injury until mid-January, and senior guard Shakeel Moore for two games due to violations of team rules, so it’ll be interesting to see how they handle non-conference play without them. This team does bring back a strong amount of their talent from last year and improved the roster with some transfers like Jimmy Bell Jr from West Virginia and Andrew Taylor a great scorer from Marshall.

Arizona State will be an interesting situation with only three key returners from a team that made the NCAA Tournament last season. They bring back players at different positions with guard Frankie Collins, a wing in Jamiya Neal, and a forward in Alonzo Gaffney.

Gaffney will be out for this matchup with a foot injury, so both teams will be missing some inside presence to start the year. They’ll have to utilize the number of transfers they brought in, and it will be clear soon who is going to step up to fill the holes this roster needs to figure out. Bobby Hurley’s Sun Devils will have to answer the question about if they can handle that roster turnover in this tough matchup against a quality SEC opponent.

This should be a tightly contested matchup in the night slate of the college basketball schedule, and is a moment for two teams to start the season off on the right foot as both have to get through some adversity to get the win. At this neutral site, we’ll get a true view of where both teams are at, and how they handle roster turnover, missing players, and the pressure of a brand new season of college basketball.