A sweat-drenched Donovan Sanders returned to the bench for a timeout late in the first half, looked up at the scoreboard, and saw his team in a familiar position: Down by 18 points against BYU, its hopes of victory already dashed.

“We just need an 8-0 run,” the Mississippi Valley State men’s basketball captain shouted, earnest in his belief that it could happen, not wanting to acknowledge the reality that it almost never does.

MVSU is the country’s worst college basketball team. It’s a poor program financially, and plays nearly its entire nonconference schedule on the road, where the Delta Devils haven’t won a nonconference game in more than 18 years. Why do they do it? Money. MVSU traverses the country for “buy games” against juggernaut programs who routinely win by 50 points or more, the suffering funding the school’s entire athletic department.

Sanders is like many of his teammates. Happy to be there, thankful for the chance to play at the highest level, and desperate to win. His only Division I offer came from MVSU. They try to relish the moment, even if they’re ill-equipped for it.

The team had woken up at 2 a.m. the morning prior, driven out of Mississippi to Memphis, then flown to Salt Lake City, where the players bussed to their hotel in Orem for their game on Nov. 23 at BYU. After a brief rest, film study, team dinner, and a two-plus hour practice in high altitude, their elongated day wrapped up 21 hours after it began.

Such is life for the Delta Devils, who crisscross the nation with the odds perpetually stacked against them. Forced to play elite programs just to make ends meet. They’re the Washington Generals of college basketball, paid to lose spectacularly every time they take the court.

The Athletic spent three days embedded with the program before, during and after its game at BYU this season, to better understand the difficult realities the team faces.

Against BYU, the run that Sanders had asked for never came. Instead, minutes later, BYU hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to send MVSU to its locker room down 28 points.

“We good, bro,” Sanders told the team as he entered the locker room, the noise of a hostile, fully-packed student section and band playing behind them. “Keep grinding.”

“We know it’s coming. A couple turnovers, we’re good, we’re back.”

The Delta Devils would go on to lose by 44 — two points better than the 46 they would lose by three days later. Twenty-eight points better than the 72-point defeat suffered the week prior. Their closest loss this year was by 18 points.

MVSU is the butt of every joke. A fact they know, but cannot change.

“People don’t understand, and it is frustrating,” said head coach George Ivory. “You want us to compete at that level? It’s apples and oranges when you’re talking about budgets and everything that goes into it.”

In Alvin Stredic’s bedroom is a bulletin board with a list of goals posted. Prominently featured is a line that reads “Win a nonconference game.”

Stredic is another senior captain, and one of the Delta Devils’ best players. This is his sixth and final year in college basketball. He wants to go to the HBCU All-Star Game, and hopes to play professionally. All of that is important to him.

But before any of that, he wanted the sweet and satisfying taste of winning a real, live, nonconference basketball game.

“That,” he said, “would mean the world to me.”

“You’ve got to go in there, mentally prepared, like you can actually win. If you go in defeated already, then you’re defeated.”

Nov. 22, 2006. That was the date of MVSU’s last nonconference road win. Since then, the Delta Devils have lost a galling 190 such games in a row.

With MVSU’s 55-point loss at LSU on Dec. 29, all hopes of Stredic winning a nonconference game were officially quashed.

Most college basketball teams create a balanced schedule. A mix of home and road games, perhaps a neutral-site holiday tournament. They’ll play Division I schools at home one year, then on the road the next.

MVSU — like many HBCUs— cannot afford that luxury. Its athletic department is funded, in large part, by the men’s basketball team playing “buy games”: Get paid in the range of $80,000-$100,000 per game in exchange for the opportunity to be destroyed in front of the opposition’s home fans.

“The realities of nonconference scheduling reflect the economic challenges many HBCUs and smaller institutions face,” MVSU president Jerryl Briggs said in a statement. “These games allow us to sustain and strengthen our basketball program and athletic department. While demanding, they provide critical resources that support scholarships, equipment, travel, and academic services.”

The men’s basketball team brought in $955,000 in guarantee games last year — significantly larger than the team’s budget, and the primary source of revenue for the entire department. Very little of it, according to Ivory, goes back to his basketball team.

Ivory, 59, is also the university’s interim athletic director, responsible for overseeing the entire department. It’s a staggering level of responsibility, one reflective of the school’s tight budget. His phone lights up every few minutes with a new crisis: A donor needs a ticket to the football game that afternoon. Will there be boxes for the soup can drive on the visitor’s side?

“It started ringing at 7 a.m. this morning,” Ivory said, hours before his team played. “They called me about getting in the presidential suite. I’m like, ‘I’m in Utah.’”

Ivory is a Southwestern Athletic Conference lifer. The Jackson native is one of the most decorated players in MVSU history, leading the team to its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 1986, nearly upsetting top-seeded Duke. He reached the Big Dance again as a head coach in 2010 with Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

He’s spent 37 years in the SWAC, playing, coaching, living the grueling life associated with coaching at the poorest programs in one the game’s poorest conferences. He’s seldom gotten looks for higher profile jobs, and makes $95,000 annually to coach, a paltry sum among D-I coaches. He earned a raise of about $17,000 annually when taking over as interim AD.

MVSU doesn’t travel with a trainer or a sports information director, as is customary. Its director of operations is a graduate student, not a full-time position. There’s no tutor, for a program that spends months of the academic calendar traveling.

Most of the team meals they got in Utah were cheap or unhealthy — In-N-Out, Wing Stop, Golden Corral and Burger King were all on the menu in just over a day.

One of Ivory’s full-time assistants makes just $40,000 annually. UConn head coach Danny Hurley makes around $270,000 per game — nearly triple Ivory’s yearly coaching salary.

It should be no surprise that the Huskies beat MVSU by 34 last year. Nor should it be shocking that MVSU has lost its nonconference games by an average of 43.3 points per game.

“We all feel the same way about how scheduling goes,” Ivory said. “It’s unfortunate that it’s what we do for the athletic department. Play these games to help raise money.”

Scheduling is all about money. Which program will pay the most for the valuable service of demolishing them? It’s the collegiate equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck.

An annual study by USA Today in March found that MVSU had the second-lowest total revenue among Division I public schools. Its $4 million earned pales in comparison to the likes of Ohio State, which brought in more than $251 million.

That’s why, last season, MVSU made three trips to Northern California, plus a different one-off trip to Washington state. It made two trips to the East Coast, two trips to the state of Oklahoma, and two trips to the state of Texas. A senseless zig-zag across the continental United States — with travel often paid for by the hosting team.

This year, the team drove to Missouri. After the game, it left at 3 a.m. for a 12-hour drive to the University of Texas. Then got on the road again to face Kansas State.

“It’s a chip on your shoulder, because you want to be where those guys are,” Stredic said. “And you didn’t get recruited. … (The schedule) is tiring. You have to tell yourself, if this is what you really want to do, then this is what it takes.”

Nearly every Division I program in the country has official social media accounts to promote and chronicle its teams. MVSU is not one of those schools. The resources simply don’t exist.

But seven weeks ago, an X account called @MVSUMBB started posting. Its follower count ballooned from 43 to more than 6,300. It’s a parody account that playfully leans into the team’s futility, while trying to highlight minor positives. MVSU’s national profile is tied to its failures.

“Nobody really knows what we go through,” Stredic said. “The world doesn’t really know. All they see is the losses. ‘Oh, this is the worst team in the country.’”

“We see a lot of hate,” said George Ivory III, the coach’s son and a senior guard. “A lot of people criticizing us. … It’s like my dad says, somebody is always going to hate on you, if you’re doing good or bad.’”

Some try to use that as a positive.

“The country’s talking about you,” Sanders said. “It just makes you want to go out there and want to do more.”

MVSU is not alone in its plight. It may be the most extreme example, but the situation is similar for other teams in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, a conference with a rich history but without the funds to keep up in the evolving collegiate landscape.

Most SWAC schools, like MVSU, are devoid of athletes on lucrative NIL deals. That meant that Sanders, the first in his family to go to college — a player on whom Ivory took a flier — was tasked with guarding BYU’s Egor Demin, a freshman reportedly making well over $1 million in NIL money. He is expected to be an NBA Draft lottery pick.

Facing players like this is a nightly chore in this conference, where schedules like MVSU’s are built into the SWAC’s modus operandi.

“The revenue from playing these basketball games is generated to directly help and to positively influence the ability to be competitive,” said SWAC commissioner Charles McClelland. “It is not all just based on, ‘We have to play these games.’ There are those that are doing their scheduling very strategically.”

McClelland contended that not every team in the conference plays a grueling road schedule for the same reason. Some, like Texas Southern, he said, choose to do it for the experience.

Even if you take that interpretation at face value, there’s no denying the SWAC struggles competitively in comparison to its counterparts. The conference has consistently been rated among the worst in men’s basketball for decades.

“With so much money being generated from the TV contracts with the NCAA,” said Prairie View A&M head coach Byron Smith, who said stacking losses in the nonconference can shatter team morale, “there should be some money there that should be subsidized for the lower resource institutions.”

Smith makes $242,000. His school is much larger than MVSU and has much better facilities. It’s located near Houston and in the Texas A&M system. It has advantages that MVSU does not. And still, he’s frustrated by the resources he has to work with each season.

In many ways, the SWAC is an outlier. And MVSU is the outlier within the outlier. “It’s a tough sell,” Smith said of his rival school. “It’s out in the middle of nowhere.”

Every MVSU huddle ends the same way: “One-two-three, family. Four-five-six, SWAC.” The SWAC will always elicit a certain honor among those who truly understand. But pride can’t distort the financial inequity — its members playing 113 nonconference road games and just 12 at home, posting a 3-110 record in those road games.

“It’s getting a little bit old to continue to do this,” Smith said. “You work hard. You prepare hard. Coach hard. And then you keep coming up short. … It’s the definition of insanity. Do the same thing, and expect a different result.”

Gassed and out of breath, the Mississippi Valley State players lugged their bodies to center court. Ivory, though soft-spoken, was upset — he had a harsh message to deliver that didn’t align with the calming southern drawl with which he always talked.

This was practice, the night before their game at BYU. The drill they’d been tasked with was simple, one they do at the end of every practice. Set the clock to 42 seconds, and run the length of the court, back and forth six times.

Everything is working against MVSU. But for Ivory, his own team not working was what frustrated him most in that moment. Only a small handful of players had successfully completed the drill.

MVSU players running the sprint drill in practice. (Sam Blum / The Athletic)

“We’ve all got an excuse about something,” he told the post-practice huddle. “Nobody wants to be held accountable for nothing. It don’t make sense. We can’t do one sprint? It’s sad. Really truly sad.”

Around them were 19,000 empty seats that in just 24 hours would be filled with spectators watching this inevitable bloodbath of a basketball game. A contest whose result was all but known in that moment. Known from the second it was put on the schedule.

Against that background, it was doubly clear this wasn’t just a typical, motivational speech that you hear from a coach. Ivory questioned the very viability of the team he’d built. At numerous points, he suggested that he and his staff had constructed a bad roster.

“I can’t understand. You’ve been here four years and you’re still running the same,” he told one player.

“If you’re a guard and you can’t make these line drills,” he said to others, “that tells me something about our coaching staff, and what we need to do. Go out and find better players.”

Then a threat as sheepish as it was true: “We can lose with anybody.”

In this huddle, he never once raised his voice, but his intensity was clear. The kind of voice you listen to, because it is rarely used in this context.

Before he wrapped up, Ivory saw someone snickering. The player had transferred into the program, and his minutes were already waning. He rode the bench all through their previous game.

“What’s funny man?” Ivory asked. “You’re always laughing.”

“What should I be doing?” he responded.

“I don’t know what you should be,” the coach shot back. “But it might be your last trip. I’m tired of all that.”

“Do you want me mad,” the player said. “Or do you want me smiling?”

For all the losing, this program still takes itself seriously. The coaches and players prepare with an unambiguous plan: to pull off a dramatic upset of a BYU team fighting for the top spots in the Big 12.

At a film study earlier, assistant coach Terrance Chatman led the scout. He’d pored over tape, discussing BYU’s strengths and weaknesses as if they actually had a shot to win.

“Tonight might be our night offensively,” Chatman said during the film session to his team, which is the worst in the country for offensive efficiency. “We’re due, we’re due for it.

“They cannot score 92 (points) or more. If that happens, we’re not going to win today. We’re just not.”

“Guys, they’re good. We’re supposed to be good,” Ivory told his team in the locker room before tipoff. “We’re supposed to be coming here and competing. To win, we’ve got to get in the mindset that we’re coming to win.”

It was a picturesque evening in Utah — the sun setting beyond the canyon mountains that encase the Salt Lake City-Provo region of the state.

After departing the bus on the eve of their game at BYU, many of the players took out their photos to capture the image in front of them. The beautiful scenery, however, was secondary to the real memory they hoped to preserve: A first-ever trip to In-N-Out.

MVSU players take pictures of an In-N-Out restaurant. (Sam Blum / The Athletic)

To understand MVSU, it’s important to understand where most of its players come from. Itta Bena is a small city beset by difficult times on the Mississippi delta. The population has dropped nearly 50 percent since 1980, when it was home to 2,904 people, according to U.S. Census data. Today, there are only 1,679 residents.

“The closest movie theatre is 45 minutes away. The closest outlet mall is two hours away,” said mayor Reginald Freeman. “Things like this really hurt, and have an impact on our areas and community. A good steak house. Olive Garden, things like that, they are all two hours away. There’s nothing here in the Mississippi Delta to try and keep our kids and our community together.”

Freeman is close friends with Ivory, and volunteers to drive the team around when he can. It can be difficult to rally the community around the team. The lack of home games and a 1-30 record last season aren’t exactly a selling point.

He wants to make Itta Bena a college town. But the mayor acknowledges that’s much easier said than done.

“Over the last few decades, we have had a lack of jobs, a lack of funding,” Freeman said. “Mississippi Valley doesn’t have the enrollment that they used to have. It has a big impact on the athletic programs here.”

Players try to find silver linings in their travel adventures. Guard Kendal Parker carries a camera around everywhere, vlogging the team’s life on the road for his YouTube channel’s 32 subscribers. Appreciating that departing their small, rural Mississippi home means they get to see many parts of the country.

And try the local cuisine.

The team walked into the In-N-Out. The restaurant was already buzzing on a Friday night, with families filling up all the booths.

As the players lined up to order, the restaurant scrambled, staffing an entire register dedicated solely to the team — their tall statures and forest green track suits sticking out from the rest of the crowd.

Stredic and Sanders talked to a family with two young kids. The players made a generous offer, in part to be friendly, in part to have some people in the arena supporting them.

“We can get you some free tickets if you want, and they’ll be good seats,” Stredic said. “You can sit right behind the bench.” They couldn’t go, the parents explained, because it would be past the kids’ bedtime.

The only MVSU fan in the gym during the game was the team’s bus driver, Pasquale, who sat in the front row and high-fived the players as they ran off of the court.

The white board in MVSU’s cramped locker room still had all the keys to victory listed in bold orange lettering as the team trudged back in postgame. Under offense, it was “Execute. Patience. Take Good Shots. Limit Turnovers. Move Ball Side to Side. Get Open, Keep Moving Without Ball.”

The defensive side was similar. Concepts that are great in the theoretical. Far more difficult to execute under the unfair circumstances that define the MVSU experience.

The Delta Devils had lost, 87-43. Next it would be a trip to Santa Barbara, where they’d lose by 33. Soon after that, a 37-point defeat awaited them at Liberty, and a 41-point deficit at North Texas. MVSU played just two nonconference home games in 2024, neither D-I.

From the outside, it could appear that the program isn’t serious, or that it doesn’t care. The solemn faces after the BYU loss told a different story. Jair Horton stared blankly into the void in front of him. The room was silent, pierced by the occasional sniffle. A bug had been going through the team. And Ivory, ever the fatherly figure, kept checking on his players. Making sure they drank orange juice or hot chocolate.

“I got some NyQuil and Mucinex,” a player called out.

“Do we have enough for everybody?” Ivory asked. “Or do we need to buy some more?”

For as much as this team wants to focus on basketball, its wins and losses, first it must survive without the resources or people that boost the most successful programs.

Instead, this is a team of mercenaries. Hired to lose because they don’t have the backing to win. But also, a team that cares, with a coach who desperately wants better, even if he doesn’t have the path to make it happen.

“Let’s do the one thing we do well,” Ivory told the players — his final words after a long and difficult night. He sighed, then paused. “Let’s go eat.”

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Williams Paul / Icon Sportswire; Robert Johnson / Getty; Ron Jenkins / AP)