UK notebook: Mississippi State loads early schedule for suspensions

That Mississippi Valley State begins this season with 14 straight away games catches the eye, but it can be greeted with a yawn. Sean Woods' Delta Devils fit the crazy-schedule profile. So-called mid-major programs need the money that comes with guarantee games, so they embrace a philosophy of anything — almost literally anything — for a buck. They hope the on-court shellackings can toughen the team for conference play.

For Mississippi State, or any school in a BCS conference, to play a crazy schedule comes as a surprise.

How's this for crazy? The Bulldogs played East Tennessee State on Dec. 11, then North Carolina A&T on Dec. 12, then Nicholls State on Dec. 13, then Alabama State on Dec. 14 and then an exhibition against Belhaven on Dec. 15.

That's five games on five consecutive nights, if you're scoring at home. And just to gin up the crazy quotient, the exhibition on the fifth night was played more than 100 miles from campus in Jackson, Miss.

After what surely was an unprecedented stretch for any college team, Mississippi State left Starkville on Thursday for a two-week road trip that called for games in the Bahamas, Honolulu and Las Vegas.

Maria Sharapova Lindsay Price Zoe Saldana Rachel Perry Mary Elizabeth Winstead