Mississippi State basketball's SEC matchups for the 2026 conference slate have been set. In Starkville, Mississippi State will see Arkansas, Auburn, Tennessee, Georgia, Vanderbilt, and Oklahoma. State will travel to Kentucky, Florida, Texas, Texas A&M, South Carolina, and LSU. The Bulldogs will play home and home series with traditional rivals Ole Miss and Alabama as well as with Missouri.
The SEC slate is set ✅
— Mississippi State Men's Basketball (@HailStateMBK) June 18, 2025
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It's not a surprising schedule. It's simply the 2025 slate with the locations of the games flipped and South Carolina being swapped for Missouri as a home and home opponent. Still, it's a draw that MSU fans should be pleased with.
Mississippi State Bulldogs get favorable draw with SEC schedule
It should be said that there is no such thing as an easy SEC schedule in men's basketball. This is still a fantastic league with multiple national title contenders at the top and teams with legitimate NCAA Tournament hopes towards the bottom. With that being said, this is about as good a draw as Mississippi State could have asked for.
Getting both Auburn and Arkansas in Starkville is a massive blessing. If there are two arenas I simply do not want to have to play at in the SEC, they're Neville and Bud Walton. Right now, those are the two toughest environments to play in in the league, so not making those trips is huge. Getting Tennessee at home shouldn't be overlooked either. State hasn't won in Knoxville since Rick Ray's final season but has managed wins against the Vols otherwise.
Obviously road games at Florida and Kentucky are grueling, but there's no avoiding tough road trips in the conference. I'll trade getting the Hogs, Vols, and fightin' Bruce Pearl's at home in exchange for those road trips. And State doesn't have to play at the house of horrors that is Memorial Gymnasium? Sign me up!
They get to the two presumed worst teams in the league, LSU and South Carolina, on the road, which allows for more toss-up games to be played at the Hump. And, since you can never assume a win in college hoops, if a random bad performance happens and State lost to either of those teams, you'd much rather it happen on the road than at home for NET purposes.
Mizzou as the rotating home and home opponent is fine. Yes, they went 2-0 against State last season, and the 2026 Tigers won't be a pushover, once again expected to compete for a tourney bid. But they're also not expected to be an upper-tier team. That's a true tossup series.
Sure, MSU's got to play Alabama twice, but that's every season. There are far too many positives to get hung up on that detail (even knowing how that series has gone for the Bulldogs...). In a conference where nothing is easy, Mississippi State looks to have gotten a slate they can take advantage of in their quest to make the NCAA Tournament for the fourth-straight year.