Rick Ray joked that math was never his strong suit, but even he’s figured a few things out heading into his third season as Mississippi State’s men’s basketball coach.

For example, 13 is better than eight, and bigger players are better.

“I finally figured out you need 12 or 13 scholarship guys to be successful. I’m catching on,” Ray said to laughter Tuesday at the Road Dawgs 2014 Tour stop at the Vicksburg Convention Center.

More than 100 Mississippi State fans and alumni showed up for the lunchtime session to mingle with Ray and football coach Dan Mullen, and get an update on the the school’s two premiere programs.

For Ray, the rundown included a healthy dose of optimism. He’s gone 22-41 in two seasons with the Bulldogs, but has never had a full roster to work with.

A mix of disciplinary and academic issues, attrition and injuries has whittled the number of available scholarship players to as few as six — and rarely more than eight or nine — both years. The rest of the lineup was filled with walk-ons.

“Tyson Cunningham was a walk-on for us, was a great kid,” Ray said. “But when we got in foul trouble against Kentucky, we’ve got a 6-2 walk-on guarding Julius Randle, who’s going to be a top-five pick in the NBA draft. That doesn’t bode well for us having success.”

Heading into the 2014-15 season, Ray will welcome a full recruiting class and expects to have 13 scholarship players available from the get-go.

That will help MSU stay competitive through the course of a long Southeastern Conference season.

More importantly, he added, was the size of the incoming players. All are taller than 6-foot-7, whereas no one on the team was bigger than that last season.

“I think the biggest thing that will make a huge difference in our program is, we’ve played two straight years with only three guys that are 6-7 and above,” Ray said. “So now we’ll have seven guys 6-7 and a above. We can be a big, strong, physical team, which is what I’m looking forward to.”

Ray ackowledged the results of his first two seasons weren’t what he’d have liked them to be, but also thanked State’s fans for sticking with the team.

Now, he said, it’s time to reward that patience and faith.

“The Mississippi State fan base has been supportive through trying times. I think they’ve seen we’ve been out there with six, seven and eight scholarship guys,” Ray said.

“When it’s all said and done, you have a hard time maintaining any sort of success with those numbers. I think they see what we’re doing, the product on the court, and now we have a chance to make some jumps in the SEC.”