Why can’t MSU be good in football and basketball in the same year?
It’s a curious case: MSU can’t ever seem to have a good football team and a good basketball team in the same academic year.
Have you ever noticed this trend? We’ve had some of our best football teams over the last few years while the basketball program was mired in the Rick Ray years. At the football programs lowest depths from 2001-2006, MSU featured some of its best basketball teams under Rick Stansbury.
I’ll prove it to you. Mississippi State has made 10 NCAA Tournament appearances and 19 bowl games. Here is how they match up with one another withing the same school year:
Since the first appearance in an NCAA Tourney was 1963, we’ll start there.
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1962-63: NCAA Tourney, no bowl game
1963-64: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
1974-75: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
1980-81: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
1981-82: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
1990-91: NCAA Tourney, no bowl game
1991-92: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
1992-93: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
1994-95: bowl game and NCAA Tourney
1995-96: NCAA Tourney, no bowl game
1998-99: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
1990-00: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
2000-01: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
2001-02: NCAA Tourney, no bowl game
2002-03: NCAA Tourney, no bowl game
2003-04: NCAA Tourney, no bowl game
2004-05: NCAA Tourney, no bowl game
2007-08: bowl game and NCAA Tourney
2008-09: NCAA Tourney, no bowl game
2010-11: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
2011-12: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
2012-13: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
2013-14: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
2014-15: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
2015-16: bowl game, no NCAA Tourney
Only two times has the football team made a bowl game in the same academic year as the basketball team went to the big dance.
It’s almost uncanny how it has happened. Look at that streak from 1990-91 to present day. In 20 out of 26 years, MSU either made a bowl game or an NCAA Tournament appearance, but only twice did it happen in the same year. Three straight bowl games in the late 90s (should have been four) with no NCAAs, then flip the script and four straight trips to the NCAA Tourney with no bowl game. Wow.
Now we’re in the 2016-17 school year and the football team is all but finished with regards to becoming bowl eligible, while the basketball team is trending upwards with Ben Howland…and are expected to compete for a spot in the big dance.
Life of an MSU fan.