Mississippi State Bulldogs is the name given to the athletic teams of Mississippi State University, in Mississippi State, Mississippi. The university is a founding member of the Southeastern Conference and competes in NCAA Division I.
Sports sponsored
Mississippi State sponsors teams in seven men's and nine women's NCAA sanctioned sports. Mississippi State won its first team National Championship in 2021, defeating Vanderbilt in the 2021 College World Series.
Baseball
Men's basketball
Throughout its history, Mississippi State has been a competitive force in men's basketball. The Bulldogs have accumulated 10 conference regular season championships, four conference tournament championships, seven divisional championships, and 10 NCAA Tournament appearances, including three trips to the Sweet Sixteen and a Final Four appearance in 1996. Mississippi State has also made seven appearances in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT).
In 1963, the team made history by defying an order from then-Governor of Mississippi Ross Barnett not to play in the NCAA tournament, because the team they faced, Loyola University of Chicago, had African-Americans on its squad (four of them were starters). (The Jackson Daily News also tried to intimidate the Bulldogs against playing the Ramblers by prominently featuring pictures of the four black players on the front page of the paper.) Coach Babe McCarthy sneaked the team out of Starkville to travel to East Lansing, Michigan, to face Loyola University Chicago, only to lose to the Ramblers, who went on to win the title that year. Known as the "Game of Change", this was one of the first times that an all-white Deep South school faced a team with black members, and it is considered to be a watershed moment in the Civil Rights era.
Boston Celtics great Bailey Howell played at Mississippi State and is the only MSU player to be in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The 1995–96 team reached a pinnacle in MSU's basketball history, winning a second-straight SEC Western Division title, claiming a first-ever SEC Tournament Championship over top-ranked and eventual national champion Kentucky, and gaining a berth in the NCAA's national championship Final Four. That team earned its national championship ticket with impressive regional wins over No. 1 seed Connecticut and No. 2 seed Cincinnati. State's 26 wins that season were the most in school history at the time.
Mississippi State's Humphrey Coliseum ("the Hump") is the largest on-campus basketball arena in the state of Mississippi. Opened in 1975, Humphrey Coliseum remains one of the premier basketball venues in the Southeastern Conference, with a seating capacity of 10,500. On February 16, 2010, a crowd of 10,788 fans watched the Bulldogs play host to #2 Kentucky, breaking the coliseum's attendance record. In 2011, The Mize Pavilion, a new basketball practice facility and atrium entrance, opened in front of the coliseum. The Bulldogs have sold out of season tickets for the fourth year in a row.
Women's basketball
The Bulldogs have shown marked improvement over the last decade. Nine Bulldogs have made the All-SEC team 16 times, and even more impressive, the women have earned 28 SEC honor roll memberships since 1990. The program is notable for ending the UConn Huskies record 111-game winning streak by beating them 66–64 in overtime in the Final Four of the 2017 NCAA Tournament. The buzzer-beater shot that put the Bulldogs in front of the Huskies came from the smallest player on the court, the 5-foot-5 inch junior, Morgan William.
Football
Mississippi State University, then Mississippi A&M, began playing football in 1895 under the nickname "Maroons". The sport continues to be a favorite among the Bulldog faithful. Home games are played at Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field, the second oldest football stadium in NCAA Division I-FBS, which has a seating capacity of 61,337. The largest crowd in attendance was 62,945 when No. 3 MSU beat No. 2 Auburn on October 11, 2014. After this game, the Bulldogs took over as AP number 1 in the AP rankings.