STARKVILLE — John Cohen took over an athletic department that had already expanded its football stadium and in the process of a complete overhaul of its baseball stadium. That left one revenue sport, basketball, awaiting a facility upgrade, and Cohen heard plenty of questions about what was to come.

At some point he came to a conclusion: instead of answering the question hundreds of times, he might as well show the public what the athletic department has in mind.

Mississippi State did just that, unveiling some renderings in a video played at last week’s football game against Texas A&M. The current Humphrey Coliseum will play host to the No. 18 men’s basketball team’s exhibition against Georgia Southwestern 2 p.m. Sunday (SEC Network+), and Cohen, MSU’s Director of Athletics, spoke to The Dispatch about the future of the venue.

MSU has not announced a timetable or a dollar amount for the project, and both of those omissions are intentional.

“Our timeline really has a lot to do with the fundraising part of it,” Cohen said. “If you gauge how our fundraising went for Dudy Noble Field, the planning, the fundraising part, the approval part, I believe we can start construction in a reasonable amount of time.”

While some of those details remain to be determined, the release of the renderings is a significant step in a lengthy process.

Cohen told The Dispatch MSU has been in discussions with architects since he became the athletic director and most likely before then. That was the beginning of a price range discussion, where MSU began the process of comparing what it wants with what it can afford and working to find where the two meet.

He also learned something about The Hump in those talks.

“The bowl itself, the seating itself is very good, for a lot of different reasons,” Cohen said. “We went 36-2 in that building a year ago, it’s not all broken, but there are several things about the facility that definitely need upgrading in a rather grand scale, and that’s what our plan is to do.”

The seating bowl will be the subject of some renovation, as MSU plans on placing a premium seating section at floor level, but most of the improvements are set to take place around the floor. The specifics of those improvements remain to be determined in the continuing discussions with architects and construction experts.

“Our goal is to create a more modern concourse with the new amenities we have,” Cohen said. “Our goal at this point is to have a full-scale store that is there to sell Mississippi State gear, not just on gamedays but all year long. We have discussed the feasibility and the possibility of having a restaurant on the concourse that’s available all year round, not just on gamedays.

“Our entry ways in the facility are very important to us, we want to make a statement in that way as well.”

Cohen added he expects the maximum capacity number to be similar to the arena’s current roughly 10,500, but it is not the goal to add seats.

MSU fans familiar with the construction schedule for the Dudy Noble Field renovation will likely get the same schedule for Humphrey Coliseum’s renovation, whenever it comes.

“Our plan is, depending on what year we can start construction, is to start after a basketball season and work through the next basketball season,” Cohen said. “Not do anything that’s going to inhibit our fans, our student-athletes and our coaches, that takes a tremendous amount of planning, to be able to pull that off while you’re playing in the same building.

“It’s my understanding at this point that it’ll be a lot like football, where we’ll close off a portion of the building and make that portion inaccessible to fans and student-athletes while construction is going on. At this time, we believe that we can do construction through a basketball season.”

Cohen said most of MSU’s planning efforts have been on the concourse and entrance, but will soon turn to ground-level improvements such as student-athlete areas. That’s where Cohen expects heavy involvement from men’s basketball coach Ben Howland and women’s basketball coach Vic Schaefer.

In Howland, he will get a willing participant.

“We’ve been talking about it since I arrived here,” Howland said. “The incredible job they’ve done renovating the football stadium, the addition of the football practice facility, the baseball stadium and what’s going on over there are really impressive, so we’re really excited about it.

“We’re excited it’s basketball’s time.”

Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson