STARKVILLE — Claudell Harris Jr. was willing to do whatever it took to play in the NCAA Tournament before exhausting his college eligibility.

If that meant transferring twice in as many years, so be it. If that meant moving to the bench in mid-February after starting 14 straight games, so be it.

Although the Bulldogs are limping into the postseason with four losses in their last five games, Harris broke out of a shooting slump in Saturday’s regular-season finale at Arkansas, going 6-for-11 from the floor and 4-for-9 from behind the arc. He played 24 minutes off the bench, and his team-high 18 points were the most he scored in a Southeastern Conference game all year.

“He made a conscious move to go to a little higher level than he’s experienced in the past,” MSU head coach Chris Jans said. “Playing in the NCAA Tournament was a big reason why he made the change that he did. He wanted to have that experience. He understood that because of moving up a level, maybe his numbers wouldn’t be as glossy as they were in his previous three seasons.”

Harris spent his first two years at Charleston Southern, finishing second in the Big South as a sophomore with 17.4 points per game, but the Buccaneers were a combined 16-46 in his two seasons there. He transferred to Boston College, an ACC program, as a junior and started 28 games for the Eagles, averaging 13.7 points per game. But the Eagles, despite winning 20 games, settled for an appearance in the NIT.

So with one year of eligibility remaining, Harris entered the transfer portal again, landing at a program that had reached the NCAA Tournament twice in two years under Jans. A complementary player in a backcourt headlined by Josh Hubbard, Harris is scoring 9.8 points per contest, but the Bulldogs are a virtual lock for the tournament even after their late-season slide.

“He’s been used to basically being either the leading scorer or one of the leading scorers,” Jans said. “He’s not the only one in college basketball who has been going through it. He’s definitely hit the reset button. You can see it with his approach in practice. Happy for him. Certainly he’s not happy about the end result (Saturday), but hopefully it’s something he’ll continue doing. We’re just a better team when we have him and a couple other guys making baskets for us.”

Scouting LSU

MSU (20-11, 8-10 SEC) is the No. 10 seed in the SEC Tournament in Nashville, Tennessee, and the Bulldogs’ road starts Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. against the No. 15 seed Tigers (14-17, 3-15). It will be just 11 days since the last meeting between the teams, an 81-69 Bulldogs victory at Humphrey Coliseum on Mar. 1. LSU led by two at halftime in that game before MSU shot 64 percent in the second half to take control.

The winner of Wednesday’s game will play No. 7 seed Missouri on Thursday, with the winner of that game facing No. 2 seed Florida in Friday’s quarterfinals.

“(LSU) played us very, very well in our barn,” Jans said. “We finally went on a little bit of a run there in the middle of the second half and got some separation before we were able to close it out. They were in control for a lot of the early minutes, the first half in general. They’ve got to feel pretty good.”

Former Bulldogs guard Cam Carter leads the Tigers with 16.5 points per game, and he had 23 — on 5-for-10 from 3-point range — against MSU earlier this month. Outside of Carter, LSU struggles to shoot the ball from outside, ranking second to last in the conference in 3-point percentage. That should be a favorable matchup for the Bulldogs, who have struggled to defend the perimeter for most of the year.

Hubbard led MSU with 30 points on just two made 3-pointers in the first matchup with the Tigers, and he is averaging nearly 29 points in three career games against LSU.

“That was our third-to-last regular-season game of the year, so it’s very familiar with all of us,” Jans said. “It is nice, and I would imagine they feel the same way, to not have to start over from scratch, especially since we played them so recently.”