Trayanna Crisp set to play major role for Bulldog basketball

When coach Sam Purcell entered the offseason heading into his fourth season at Mississippi State, the coach had a lot of pieces on the roster to fill.
The Bulldogs made it to round two of the NCAA Tournament for the second time in his three years and looked to have some solid building blocks for the 2025-26 season. After losing Jerkaila Jordan and Eniya Russell to graduation, the Bulldogs lost some huge pieces to the transfer portal in Madina Okot, Debreasha Powe, Quanirah Montague and Denim Deshields and it was back to the drawing board.
Replacing a roster is nothing new for Purcell, however, as he’s had to make mass acquisitions out of the portal in almost every season on campus. One of the bigger additions to this roster came in former Arizona State and North Carolina guard Trayanna Crisp.
Adding her and getting improvements from others on the roster could go a long way in replacing production left by players like Jordan.
“If you look at our roster that we currently have right now, I have a unique group with someone like Crisp that was at (North Carolina). When you look at her stats at Arizona State, she was at 12 points per game. Same thing for Chandler (Prater). Chandler tore her Achilles when she transferred from Oklahoma State, so she didn’t get a summer workout and then obviously she came on strong. You can continue to go down the line,” Purcell said.
“What I’m trying to do is get everybody back to their career highs when they were playing great as individuals, but also challenge them to get in the gym really quick. I said this last year – we’ve got to fail fast and learn quick. We’ve got to come together and play together. If we can have that mindset of hard work every single day, the collective effort can replace what someone like Jerkaila brought to the team and let’s see what type of team we can put on the floor.”
Crisp has played a lot of high level basketball to this point in her career. A former top 100 player out of the state of Arizona in the 2022 class, Crisp started in seven games during her freshman campaign at Arizona State.
The 5’8 guard had her best season in 2023-24 when she started in 28 of 31 games played and averaged 12.1 points while pulling down 2.9 rebounds, dishing out 2.1 assists and swiping 1.3 steals a game.
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Last year at UNC, Crisp came off the bench and played a career-low 14.0 minutes with 5.6 points per game. She decided to take a chance on herself in the offseason and tner the portal and Starkville was where she felt she needed to be.
“Just knowing myself and that I can compete at this level,” Crisp said of why she transferred. “Coach Sam played a huge factor into that. He welcomed me with open arms. He’s been recruiting me for a long time and just knowing that he’s believed in me from the jump really helped get me here.
“It’s more so about the family and knowing where I want to be and who I want to be around. My last pick was something that was very intentional and I wanted to be somewhere that I can thrive, grow and get better and at Mississippi State I feel like I can get that.”
During her first three seasons, Crisp has played in 87 ball games with 36 starts for the two Power 4 teams. She has averaged 23.7 minutes, 7.9 points per game, 2.2 rebounds and 1.6 assists, while making 76% of her free throws.
With a wide open roster this season, Crisp is expected to be right in the mix for the Bulldogs. There’s a good chance that the veteran will be a regular starter for the Bulldogs and could fill a major role for a team that desperately needs it.
“I believe my role will be to provide for my team in any way,” Crisp said. “I know that I can score at an elite level so just doing that and also being able to get some defensive stops as well.”