If you began school at Mississippi State University in the fall of 2012 or later, you probably think men’s basketball is not a prominent tradition at our university. It could easily be perceived football and baseball have always been the most successful and important sports on campus. This perception is due to the recent lack of attendance at the games and the abundance of poor performances on the court. However, the men’s basketball team was very successful not too long ago. The Humphrey Coliseum was actually sold out at times. From 2006 to 2009, the men’s basketball team had three very successful seasons under then Head Coach Rick Stansbury. These seasons included one SEC Tournament Championship, one NIT Final Four, two NCAA tournament appearances and one NCAA tournament game win. At the end of those seasons, fans were still disappointed the basketball team did not win more games. During most of this time, the football and baseball teams floundered. The football team had a 14-22 record in those three seasons under previous Head Coach Sylvester Croom, and after a 2007 appearance in the College World Series, Ron Polk never took the Diamond to another NCAA tournament. In 2009, three major figures arrived on campus that changed the landscape of Mississippi State athletics forever: Dan Mullen, John Cohen and Renardo Sidney.
Renardo Sidney was a 6’10”, 250-pound five-star recruit out of from Jackson, Mississippi. Sidney played for his high school basketball team in Los Angeles, California and was the most anticipated basketball recruit in MSU basketball history.  However, the highly-touted power forward did not step on the court during the 2009-10 basketball season. Sidney was suspended for his entire freshman season and the first nine games of the 2010-11 campaign for receiving improper benefits that violated NCAA rules. To make matters worse, Sidney violated ethics rules by providing false or misleading statements. In other words, he allegedly received money, free housing for his family and other benefits based on his basketball potential and then lied to the NCAA about receiving these benefits. Sidney missed 45 games in all due to his suspension.
Sidney played his first official game as a Bulldog on Dec. 15, 2010 in his hometown of Jackson against the Belhaven Blazers. Sidney scored 10 points but only played 15 minutes in the game. On Dec. 21, after playing just two games for MSU, Sidney was suspended again for one game after an alleged outburst in practice during a Christmas break basketball tournament in Hawaii.
Following the suspension on Dec. 23, Sidney played his best game to date scoring 20 points and grabbing six rebounds in only 20 minutes against San Diego. However, that evening Sidney would be a part of one of the most embarrassing moments in MSU sports history. During a basketball game between Utah and Hawaii, ESPN cameras spotted Sidney in a fistfight with his teammate and roommate Elgin Bailey in the stands. Both Sidney and Bailey were suspended indefinitely after the fight. Replays of the fight aired over and over again on multiple media outlets, and the university received mainstream attention during the Christmas holidays for all the wrong reasons. Many critics thought this would be the end of Sidney in Starkville before he even played one home game. However, it was only the end for Elgin Bailey. Bailey requested to transfer after the incident and was granted a release from the team. Sidney’s punishment was an unsatisfying two game suspension.
Sidney was reinstated on Jan. 8 against Alabama. Sidney played well for the remainder of the season and stayed out of trouble, averaging 14.2 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. However, Sidney was only playing an average of 25 minutes per game. College basketball analysts often complained Sidney was out of shape due to his 45-game suspension. He was often seen being the last man returning to either side of the court after a change of possession. Many claimed this hurt the Bulldogs’ defensive performances. Sidney’s weight, work ethic and attitude were all questioned in his first two years at MSU. Nevertheless, fans expected a big junior year from Sidney.
The Bulldogs started the 2011-12 season with a 13-2 record and were ranked as high as No. 15 in the country. Amazingly, Sidney actually regressed in the 2011-12 season. The basketball team’s success was accredited to senior Dee Bost and transfer junior Arnett Moultrie, who both were named to the All-SEC team that year. Sidney looked even more out of shape, played fewer minutes and scored fewer points. The team played horrible defense and had no chemistry toward the end of the season. MSU lost seven of its last nine games and missed the NCAA tournament for the fourth straight year. The Bulldogs lost to the University of Massachusetts in the first round of the NIT. In that game, Sidney scored three points in only 16 minutes on the court. Later that evening, Sidney addressed his future at MSU via Twitter.
“I’m out,” Sidney tweeted.
The former McDonald’s high school All-American declared for the NBA draft but was not drafted or picked up by any team. Arnett Moultrie left for the NBA draft and was selected 27th overall by the Philadelphia 76ers. Dee Bost graduated after starting at point guard in four straight seasons at MSU, and freshman star Rodney Hood transferred to Duke University, where he would eventually become the 23rd overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft. When a team has this much talent and does this poorly, a change has to be made.
On March 15, 2012, Rick Stansbury stepped down as head coach after 14 years and the most wins in school history. Rick Ray was hired on April 1 and the rest is history. Ray won his first two SEC games as head coach at MSU, but the fun ended there. The team went on a 13-game losing streak following the first two wins. In Ray’s two-plus years at MSU, he has an overall record of 33-51 and 9-33 in SEC games. To make things worse, the SEC has been a subpar basketball conference since Ray’s arrival in 2012. The performances by the Bulldog basketball team at the Hump have been poor, but the performance on the road has been absolutely dreadful. Ray won his first road SEC game against Georgia in January 2013 but was the last lost in 22 straight road games until last Wednesday when MSU upset Auburn. That’s right, Ray has an overall record of 2-26 on the road.
It would be unfair to blame this all on Coach Ray. The talent on the court is just not there. Many fans have suggested none of Ray’s players would have played sufficient minutes on any of Stansbury’s teams. Stansbury’s teams had draft picks and All-SEC players. In the future, it will be incredibly difficult to lure talent to Starkville. What high school kids wants to play for a team that rarely wins conference games, can not win road games and has a stadium that is rarely half-full of fans?
The football and baseball programs have improved drastically since Mullen and Cohen arrived. The baseball team made it to the College World Series championship game in 2013, and the football team was ranked No. 1 in the country for the first time in school history this fall. But even in the darkest of times, I never feared for the football or baseball program the way I fear for the basketball program right now. Fans still came to watch the football and baseball teams in down years. Basketball attendance has been terrible. In Stansbury’s time, SEC tickets were hard to come by. The student section was hard to get into even hours before tipoff.
The Bulldogs looked better in their last four games in a four-point road loss to Texas A&M and home win against Vanderbilt. Then came the upset at Auburn and a close loss against Georgia, but some detractors are still calling for the firing of Rick Ray. If he does not improve his SEC win totals this season, he may be gone. As bad as Ray has been at MSU, who could have done better? Besides, it is highly unlikely any coach with name value could be lured to Starkville. Still, with a road winning percentage of less than four percent, a strong case could be made for parting ways with Ray. No matter what happens, there may be no light at the end of this tunnel.
It seems Sidney coming to Starkville is the direct correlation for the state of the MSU basketball program. The Sidney story should be a lesson to schools like Florida State when they are dealing with talent like Jameis Winston. Sometimes all the talent in the world is not worth dealing with appalling character. However, football teams are not as vulnerable to players with egos due to the fact teams are made up of nearly 100 players. There are only about 13 players on a college basketball team, which means one player can easily destroy the team chemistry. Sidney is a perfect example of how one player can be a cancer to a program.
Many people make mistakes that put the MSU basketball program where it is today, but Sidney is the main culprit. I like to think that if Sidney had never stepped on our campus, our basketball program would look much different. Stansbury would still be our coach, and no one in Mississippi would know about Rick Ray. We probably would not be competing for national championships, but we would definitely be winning more than five SEC games per year. There is still time for Ray to turn the program around, but he has quite the hill to climb, and he is running out of time to do it.