Mississippi State is in action on this first round Friday of the NCAA Tournament. The 8-seed Bulldogs are taking on the 9-seed Baylor Bears in Raleigh, NC in the East Region. This is expected to be a tightly contested game between a pair of fairly evenly matched squads.
You'd expect varying opinions of the matchup given how competitive it should be, but with Mississippi State being the higher seed and favorite, presumably most would be on the Bulldogs. However just one from CBS' panel of analysts are taking Mississippi State to defeat the Bears, but he's a basketball legend and beloved figure in sports media.
Charles Barkley predicts Mississippi State to beat Baylor in NCAA Tournament
11x All-Star, 1993 NBA MVP, Basketball Hall of Famer, and all-time SEC basketball great Charles Barkley is riding with Mississippi State in their first round matchup with Baylor in the NCAA Tournament. Of the three analysts on CBS' pregame show, Barkley was the only one to take the Bulldogs to get the win today.
Clark Kellogg and Kenny Smith each took Baylor to defeat the Bulldogs, feeling that Baylor's speed would allow them to attack the Mississippi State defense while Baylor's own defense should give them enough of an edge to get the win.
But Charles Barkley went with the Bulldogs for a very simple reason: they're an SEC team. Barkely, one of the greatest Auburn Tigers of all time across all sports, has no shame in repping the SEC when he gets the chance to and favoring its teams to win. That's always a safe bet, but it's especially smart this year.
The SEC was far and away the best conference in the country this season and set an NCAA record with 14 teams being selected to the tournament. Granted, the SEC has already seen three teams eliminated from the Dance, including Missouri, who was upset by Drake on Thursday. But the other two losses, by Texas and Georgia, weren't at all surprising.
It's still fair to expect the bulk of the league's teams to make noise in March. We'll see if Sir Charles is correct in predicting Mississippi State to be one of those teams.
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