LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference made its mark as a top-flight basketball league by putting eight teams into the NCAA Tournament this season.

Mississippi State wasn’t among them, but has earned a chance to add a rare achievement to the league’s resumé.

Quinndary Weatherspoon scored 19 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, and Mississippi State advanced to the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden in New York with a 79-56 victory over Louisville on Tuesday.

It’s the first time an SEC team has reached the NIT’s Final Four since Alabama lost in the championship game in 2011. Since the tournament’s inception in 1938, only five SEC teams have won it — Kentucky in 1946 and 1976, Vanderbilt in 1990, and South Carolina in 2005 and 2006.

“It’s going to be pretty fun,” Weatherspoon said of playing in Madison Square Garden. “I’ve played in a couple of big arenas, including this one (at Louisville), but I don’t think it’s going to be nothing like playing in an NBA arena that a lot of great players have played in. So, it’s going to be my first time playing there and I hope I play well.”

Mississippi State (25-11) will face Penn State (24-13) next Tuesday. It’s the second appearance for the Bulldogs in the NIT Final Four. They last made it in 2007.

Southern Miss, in 1987, is the only Mississippi team ever to win the NIT.

More than the chance to make history, Mississippi State coach Ben Howland was happy with the postseason run his team is putting together. The Bulldogs won two road games at Baylor and Louisville to reach the semifinals, after only winning four times in 13 trips away from Starkville prior to the tournament.

“Well that was a phenomenal win for us. This is so exciting for our team. The way they came out here prepared. The way they prepared for this,” Howland said. “Remember, we played Sunday, just like they did. They played Sunday night, we played Sunday morning. We had to travel. So to travel that much and show up with that kind of effort is really gratifying for me as their coach and I can’t say enough about our entire team. How hard they worked and prepared for this, because we wanted to go to New York City and go to the Garden badly and they displayed that in how they played today.”

After beating Baylor with a buzzer-beater Sunday, the Bulldogs blew out Louisville 48 hours later.
Lamar Peters opened the second quarter with a 3-pointer and Mississippi State led by at least nine points the rest of the way. Weatherspoon scored eight points during a 12-3 run to start the third for a 51-31 advantage and MSU cruised.

“Well, we just ran into a bus tonight,” Louisville interim coach David Padgett said. “That’s a heck of a basketball team. They’re the epitome of a team that’s even more impressive in person after you watch them on film. That’s a big time basketball team. They’re extremely athletic and very skilled at every position, shot the ball well and we just couldn’t find it offensively tonight.”

Aric Holman added 16 points and eight rebounds for Mississippi State, which has won its most games since the 2009-10 season.

Xavian Stapleton and Nick Weatherspoon each chipped in with 12 points. Abdul Ado had three blocks to tie Jarvis Varnado for the most blocks by a Mississippi State freshman with 67.

Peters had just six points and four assists — the first game in the NIT in which he has failed to reach double figures in assists — but Mississippi State had 14 assists as a team. Nick Weatherspoon contributed four and six players had at least one each.

“I’m just excited about how we passed the ball. There were a lot of extra passes tonight that were fantastic. Aric was the recipient of a couple of them, and he made a couple great ones,” Howland said. “To see where we started, and where we’ve come from in terms of making the extra pass, is just so exciting, because we really looked good tonight at both ends of the floor. This is one of our best games of the year and it’s good to be playing that way at the end of the season.”

Ray Spalding paced Louisville with 13 points and 11 rebounds for his 11th double-double of the season. The Cardinals shot 35 percent from the floor and were outrebounded 42-32.

On Wednesday, Louisville announced that Padgett would not be retained as its head coach. The Cardinals finished 22-14 after the school placed Rick Pitino on unpaid administrative leave following its acknowledgement that it was being investigated in a federal corruption probe of college basketball.

Pitino was fired in October after 16 seasons.

“It was just a learning experience,” Padgett said Wednesday at a news conference on campus. “I didn’t give myself expectations, I didn’t give my team expectations. But having never done something before, you’re always going to say, how am I going to do, doing it for the first time. All things considered, I think it went really, really well.”