STARKVILLE — Sam Purcell still remembers the feeling of a year ago Monday, sitting in the meeting room at Humphrey Coliseum with his Mississippi State team watching the NCAA Tournament selection show.

The Bulldogs had looked like a lock in early February, sitting at 7-3 in Southeastern Conference play including a win over reigning national champion LSU. But MSU lost six of its last seven games and tumbled out of the tournament into what Purcell called the “little dance” — the newly-formed WBIT.

Although this season was similarly up and down, the Bulldogs put themselves in good shape with a strong non-conference performance, and even at 7-9 in the SEC, MSU earned a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs will face California in the first round Saturday in Los Angeles, likely for the right to play No. 1 seed USC in the second round.

“(This is) for our players this year who made the commitment to come, my staff, our fans,” Purcell said. “This is only our 13th school appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Two of the last three years since I’ve been here, we’ve been in the tournament. We’re not in the little dance; we’re in the big dance. So let’s lace it up and see how things fall.”

MSU (21-11) made it back to the NCAA Tournament after a one-year absence with a mostly new cast of characters. Leading scorer and fifth-year senior guard Jerkaila Jordan, sharpshooting junior Debreasha Powe and sophomore backup post player Quanirah Montague are the Bulldogs’ only returners.

Rocío Jiménez, a redshirt freshman from the Dominican Republic who has a nearly 7-foot wingspan, was also on the roster last year but has not yet played in a college game.

Purcell also had to replace most of his staff as Michelle Clark-Heard and Corry Irvin left for head coaching jobs at other schools and Gabe Lazo left to become an assistant at Tennessee. MSU brought in former head coaches Fred Castro, Anita Howard and Samantha Williams as well as program legend Victoria Vivians, who helped the Bulldogs reach back-to-back national championship games in 2017 and 2018.

“You have to look at the dynamics of the team,” Purcell said. “We clapped it up for (the returners) because it starts with the core. And then I took them out of the circle and I brought in all the transfers, and I said, ‘You all deserve your flowers too, because there were only four kids here. So not only did you come here for the opportunity, but you took advantage of it.’”

Following the announcement of MSU’s draw Sunday night, Purcell began sending out feelers to celebrities with Mississippi ties, hoping to attract as many fans in maroon as possible to the Galen Center. Purcell tagged Oprah Winfrey, author John Grisham and former Major League Baseball all-star Will Clark in posts on X (formerly Twitter), trying to get them to support the Bulldogs.

International players aside, nobody on MSU’s roster is from farther west than Kansas City, Missouri, and Purcell estimated that just three of his players have been to Los Angeles before. While this will, of course, be a business trip, Purcell said he is hoping to make time for some sightseeing as well.

“There are coaches who just make you sit in the hotel and think about it,” Purcell said. “We’ve played five months of great basketball. They know what to do. They know how to dial in. So let’s enjoy the luxury of having the band (and) the cheerleaders going with us, sightseeing a little bit. That’s my job as an educator and as a head coach to give them experiences they’ll never forget. If the Lakers want to donate tickets for the Bulldogs, we’ll take courtside seats.”