Diary Series: Phil Cunningham, Asst. Coach - Mississippi State

In early August, we took our team on a nine-day foreign tour to Europe.  Basketball Travelers organized our trip, and Erik Evans turned out to be a fantastic tour guide.  I have tremendous respect for Nels and his entire organization not only for their excellent work, but also for the fact that Nels is a strong Christian man who isn't afraid to share his faith with the rest of the world.  

We used our 10 days of practice during the final week of July and the first few days of August.  Since recruiting was still in full swing, it turned out to be a crazy week or so for the coaches.  I think that Coach Marcus Grant and I took three separate trips from Starkville to one destination in one 6-day span...that was nuts!  But everything ended up working out very well for our team as we advanced so far in that time where we were able to practice and play.  The basketball experience was invaluable to our team, and our guys got to visit some great cities including Amsterdam, Ghent, and Paris in the process.

With five new players, the practice time and five games in Europe made a real difference in preparing our team for the upcoming season that begins tonight vs. Eastern Kentucky in the 2K Sports Classic.  Two of those new guys, Arnette Moultrie and Rodney Hood, will likely be in the starting lineup, while Brian Bryant and Wendell Lewis took big steps forward as well.  And we hope for freshman point guard Deville Smith from Jackson, Mississippi to be a "gamechanger" with his quickness and toughness off the bench.  As a coaching staff, getting to see those guys in practice and game situations made the first two weeks of regular practice last month so much smoother.  We had a good idea of their strengths and "what makes them tick" before we even rolled out the first ball on October 14th due to our foreign trip.

We also opened our new basketball practice facility in June, and it's got to be one of the best of it's kind in the country.  It supposedly has the most floor space of any such facility in the SEC and the weight room is one of the largest in the country.  There's even an underground parking garage! This project has been a special one for quite some time for Coach Stansbury, and nobody will ever know how much time and effort he put into turning that particular dream into an extraordinary reality.  So many wonderful folks stepped up to the plate at Coach Stansbury's urging to fund this project, and the main contributor, the Mize Foundation, earned the naming rights with it's generous contribution.  Buzzy Mize, a man with an unbelievable sports library of a mind, made a terrific move when he suggested that the facility be named the Mize Pavilion in honor of UCLA's legendary home court.  

Most folks would truly be surprised after spending an hour on our campus and touring all of the facilities that our basketball student/athletes get the pleasure of utilizing.  The Hump (Humphrey Coliseum) is in immaculate condition; the Mize Pavilion is as good as it gets; the recently opened Templeton Athletic-Academic Center is off the charts; and our university is building new dorms left and right. And last, but not least, our upperclassmen just moved into the newest apartments in Starkville, which are located directly on the perimeter of our campus.  The Bulldogs have got it going pretty good when it comes to facilities!

Back to breaking down video for the 2K Classic...I've got the Akron Zips, and that's one well-coached, hard-playing team with some guys who can play at any level!

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