The pain is still fresh for Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury. It was evident in his voice and his words on this morning’s SEC coaches teleconference. He defended his team’s NCAA résumé and said he has not – and could not – receive a satisfactory explanation for the Bulldogs not receiving an NCAA tournament berth. They will play Jackson State at 9 p.m. Tuesday in the first round of the NIT.

“No. 1, nobody could give me none anyway,” Stansbury said. “That’s No. 1. I haven’t received any (explanation), to answer your question. No. 2, there’s nothing anybody could tell me. And No. 3, it don’t matter.”

Stansbury went on to defend his scheduling – State’s strength of schedule was in the low 100s before Sunday; now it’s 74th – and cited road games against Houston (win), San Diego (win) and Western Kentucky (loss), as well as games versus UCLA (Wooden Classic in Anaheim, Calif.) and DePaul (SEC/Big East Challenge in Tampa), both wins.

“First off, I don’t understand the strength of schedule. How some of these teams from these smaller leagues have such a good strength of schedule, but we play 16 SEC games. And besides our 16 SEC games, we had eight games non-conference away from home. Away from home. I don’t know if there’s another BCS team in America that did that.”

So to get snubbed after losing that heartbreaker to Kentucky in Sunday’s SEC title game, it was a “double disappointment,” as Stansbury put it.

“I’m sure you witnessed the game, everybody listening witnessed the game, so you know what a heartbreaker that was. To not be one of the 64 teams was a double heartbreaker.”

He later added, “It’s not always fair, that’s life. But no one can ever convince me and tell me we’re not one of the best 64 teams in the country. Based on numbers, based on committees, and based on politics sometimes, that’ll always happen. And that’s the way it is.”

• OTHER COACHES ON MSU: Florida was a bubble team that got the nod over State. UF coach Billy Donovan said he wasn’t really surprised by that.

“I’m not going to sit here and make a case for our team over anybody else,” he sad. “Mississippi State’s in our league, and I think Rick did a terrific job with his team, and they made it all the way to the finals there and probably are deserving to be in the tournament. I think the one thing we really tried to do, I know for myself and with the commissioner (Mike Slive) and C.M. Newton (an NCAA selection committee chairman), there was a real, real strong push, at least from us, to really take our schedule to really a different level.”

Florida’s strength of schedule is ranked 36th in the country, according to RealTimeRPI.com.

On MSU, Donovan added, “They played unbelievably coming down the stretch and probably no question can make a case for being in there.”

Kentucky coach John Calipari continued to stump for MSU, even after the fact. “Obviously, Mississippi State they’re saying now they had to beat us, which is crazy because they took us to overtime in two games. And if we’re the No. 2-seeded team in the whole tournament, I don’t know what that means. Well, they could’ve done more out of league, and they could’ve done this – but they won the division.”