Mississippi State is still playing basketball. That’s the good news.

The bad news is, the Bulldogs aren’t playing where or when they’d hoped to be. Mississippi State will open the National Invitation Tournament tonight in Starkville against Massachusetts. It’s a disappointing destination for a team that spent much of the season ranked in the Top 25 before cratering in the final month of the season.

MSU finished with a 21-11 record, but was 2-6 in its last eight games and lost in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament to Georgia. Still considered a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament before the brackets were announced, Mississippi State received a No. 4 seed in the NIT — meaning it almost missed the second-tier tournament as well.

The Bulldogs returned to the court for practice on Monday, frustrated and disappointed but determined to make the best of the situation.

“It was good to get back on the court again,” senior point guard Dee Bost said. “We’ve got a bad taste we need to get out of our mouths. We have a lot to prove.”

Massachusetts is not an easy first-round draw for State. The Minutemen went 22-11 and lost to eventual conference tournament champion St. Bonaventure in the Atlantic 10 semifinals.

Guard Chaz Williams leads Massachusetts in scoring at 16.4 points per game. Forward Raphiael Putney (10.3 points) and guard Jesse Morgan (10.2 points) also average in double figres. All three players are sophomores, and UMass only has one senior in the starting lineup.

“You look at UMass and the first thing you is notice is how good they are. They play in a very good league, and they are very balanced,” MSU coach Rick Stansbury said.

Despite its late-season swoon, Mississippi State might have one of the most talented teams in the NIT field.

Bost and Arnett Moultrie, the Howell Trophy winner as Misssissippi’s best college basketball player, were both selected to the Associated Press All-SEC team on Monday. Both players received the same honor from the league’s coaches last week.

Bost is averaging 15.6 points per game, and Moultrie averages 15.8 points and 10.6 rebounds.

LSU opens NIT

play at Oregon

LSU travels to Oregon for its first-round game tonight at 8:30 p.m.

The Tigers (18-14) the sixth seed in the Washington region, split two games with Arkansas and Kentucky in the SEC Tournament. Third seed Oregon (22-9) tied for second in the Pac 12 with a 13-5 record.

The winner will play the winner of second seed Dayton and seventh-seed Iowa, also playing Tuesday.

The Tigers are making their sixth postseason NIT appearance — 1970, 1982, 1983, 2002, 2004 — with their best showing coming in the NIT in 1970 that was played at Madison Square Garden. The Tigers won two games before losing to Marquette in the semifinals.

“I think how it benefits our program is to still have the opportunity to play and get better,” LSU coach Trent Johnson said. “The benefits are immeasurable. It is good for this group, just because they had a really, really bitter taste in their mouth. They understand because what was it, three weeks ago, we were in the position where we could have played our way into the NCAA Tournament, and we didn’t.”

Johnson is familiar with the Ducks from his four years at Stanford, where he put together a 6-2 record against them. He is 6-7 in post-season play combined at Nevada, Stanford and LSU.