STARKVILLE – It was the mid-2000s when Isaac Stansbury’s memories of Mississippi State started accumulating. His father, Rick, was of course the head men’s basketball coach of MSU at the time and a very young Isaac could often be found all throughout the Humphrey Coliseum.
“I can recall going to games eating popcorn in the media room,” Isaac said. “I’d even play Xbox against some of the former players.”
Names like Charles Rhodes, Dee Bost and Ravern Johnson were among Isaac’s video game competition.
“They went easy on me sometimes and I’d win,” Stansbury said. “If they actually tried though, I wouldn’t beat them.”
Whether it’s on a screen with a controller in your hand, or life in general, true success doesn’t come easily after all. But now, some 15 or so years since Stansbury was going head-to-head with State legends, he knows all about giving it his all and achieving great things.
This weekend, Stansbury will graduate with his degree in petroleum engineering. Couple that with his time spent as a walk-on basketball player for the Bulldogs and he’s a shining example for what a student-athlete should be.
“You’ve got to stay disciplined with everything going on,” Stansbury said of how he was able to manage playing hoops while earning a challenging degree. “It’s not easy. You’ve got to work hard and be dedicated. It’s just been good to be able to get a good degree that took a whole lot of hard work and dedication to do and to do it while playing basketball makes it all mean more.”
For Stansbury to get to this point, it’s taken jam-packed days full of working out the brain and the body. He’s always prioritized his classwork, as evidenced by the fact he’s a multi-time member of the Southeastern Conference Academic Honor Roll.
“All my classes are in person,” Stansbury explained. “So, you’ve got to go to class every day. You’ve got to do homework every day. They expect that the amount of time we’re in class is the amount of time you spend on homework every day too.”
Stansbury has had to master a math-and-science-heavy curriculum. There have been projects and group work aplenty. Obviously, group work is something Stansbury has been all too familiar with due to his basketball career.
Stansbury came to MSU prior to the 2019 season out of Greenwood High School in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He’d picked up…
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