STARKVILLE, Miss. — A rebuilt Tennessee Tech men’s basketball team begins a new chapter Monday night, opening the 2026-27 season at Mississippi State in its first game since leaving the Ohio Valley Conference.
Tipoff at Humphrey Coliseum is set for 6:30 p.m. Central, 7:30 p.m. Eastern. It is the Bulldogs’ first of three straight home games to start the season.
Almost everything about the Golden Eagles is new. Tobin Anderson is in his first year as head coach, and only two of the 15 roster spots belong to players who were in Cookeville last year. Southern Conference coaches picked Tech sixth in their preseason poll. Tech closed its OVC run last winter at 13-18, including 8-12 in league play.
Anderson arrives with one of the best-known upsets in recent March history on his resume. In his only season at Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023, his 16th-seeded team knocked off top-seeded Purdue in the NCAA Tournament, just the second win ever by a 16 seed over a 1 seed. That FDU team had won just four games the year before he arrived.
Mississippi State, coached by Chris Jans, brings back guard Josh Hubbard, a preseason first-team All-SEC pick whose scoring has already put him among the most prolific shooters in league history. Hubbard has 1,947 career points, fourth on the school’s all-time list, and has already set the program record with 311 career 3-pointers. He scored 707 points last season, averaging 22.1 a game, as the Bulldogs finished 13-19.
History favors the hosts. Mississippi State has won all four previous meetings, three of them in Starkville, and the teams last played on Nov. 26, 1998, an 83-57 Bulldogs win.
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