Mississippi State baseball is off to a 15-1 start and will open SEC play at Florida this weekend.
Ole Miss (12-3) will have a mid-week trip to No. 8 Louisville this week before returning to Oxford to take on Alabama (14-2) in SEC play.
USM rebounded this week to win four straight to improve to 8-5. The Eagles open C-USA play at Louisiana Tech (10-5) this weekend.
SEC MEN'S HOOPS
TOURNEY BEGINS
The Men’s SEC Tournament begins this week in Nashville. The Mississippi State Bulldogs (22-9) will play on Thursday night against the Texas A&M-Vanderbilt winner in the late game of the night. Seventh-seeded Ole Miss (20-12) will play 10th-seeded Alabama.right before the sixth-seeded Bulldogs on Thursday.
LSU won its first regular season SEC title by one game over Tennessee and Kentucky. Auburn and South Carolina are the fourth and fifth seeds respectively.
USM HOOPS
PULLS UPSET
The USM Eagles (19-11) upset regular season C-USA champions Old Dominion this past week and ended as the third seed in this week’s C-USA tournament in Frisco, Texas. USM will play Thursday night while the Lady Golden Eagles (17-12) will enter as the eighth seed in the conference tournament and will play Wednesday morning against North Texas, also at the Star in Frisco.
LADY BULLDOGS
WIN SEC TOURNEY
Mississippi State Lady Bulldog head basketball coach Vic Schaefer finally received his wish of having the confetti hit his face rather his back. The Lady Bulldogs had lost the last SEC Tournament three championship games to South Carolina, but Sunday won their first ever SEC Tournament with a, 101-70, win over Arkansas. MSU is now 30-2 and will begin NCAA play on March 22. MSU’s Teaira McGowan was named the MVP of the tournament.
ODDS & ENDS
— Qiayon Bailey scored a game-high 28 points to lead Mississippi University For Women's basketball team to a 69-46 victory over Maine-Fort Kent in the USCAA National Championship Game on Saturday. The W finished its first basketball season in 15 years with a 21-6 record.
— The MHSAA champs for 2019 were crowned this past week. Girl champs are Pearl (6A) Olive Brach (5A), Louisville (4A), Kossuth (3A), Newton (2A) and Pine Grove (1A). Boy champs are Starkville (6A), Center Hill (5A), Raymond (4A), Velma Jackson (3A), Bay Springs (2A) and East Marion (1A).
— The 2019 MS/AL All-Star basketball games will be played on the campus of Alabama State University in Montgomery this Friday night at 5/7 p.m.
— The Mississippi Coaches of Association will induct five new members into their Coaches Hall of Fame. Geary Jackson, Kenny Robinson, M.C. Miller, Junior Graham and Ken Bramlett will join other legendary coaches on June 21, at the Jackson Hilton.
— William Carey baseball will honor their 1969 National Championship team on March 23.
— Pearl River Community College won the men’s Region 23 tournament and will head to Hutchinson, Kansas for the national JUCO tournament for the first time in school history. The Jones Lady Bobcats won their third straight Region 23 title and will head once again to Lubbock, Texas, for the national tournament.
— Delta State (24-6) men won the Gulf South Conference and will head to the NCAA II tournament this weekend,while the Tougaloo College men won the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference basketball title and will head to Kansas City for the NAIA National Tournament.
— The University of Southern Mississippi hosted the first NCAA-sanctioned beach volleyball contest in Mississippi as they entertained Tulane this past weekend.
Dale McKee is a longtime sportswriter from Waynesboro and writes a weekly column about Mississippi sports for several weekly newspapers. McKee can be reached by email at ddmckee18@yahoo.com.
