In hindsight, Phil Cunningham says he should’ve taken more time to enjoy what he and Rick Stansbury accomplished together at Mississippi State.

Cunningham was by Stansbury’s side 12 seasons in Starkville, Miss. He came on as an assistant for the 2000-01 campaign and stayed until 2012, when Stansbury resigned from the Bulldogs’ coaching job.

Mississippi State has been to the NCAA Tournament just 10 times in its program’s history. Six of those appearances came with Stansbury as head coach and Cunningham as assistant.

Cunningham contributed to a run of sustained success Mississippi State hadn’t experienced before and hasn’t since.

As Cunningham takes his Troy team to face Stansbury’s Western Kentucky squad Sunday (2 p.m., HSSN), he said he now appreciates all the men accomplished together with the Bulldogs.

“The thing that stands out about the entire time there is we had a heck of a run at a place where it’s not easy to do what we did,” Cunningham told the Daily News on Thursday in a phone interview. “In hindsight, I don’t think we ever really stopped to enjoy it.

“It’s hard to do, because if you’re going to win at a place like Mississippi State, it’s just nonstop work.”

Cunningham worked those 12 seasons at Mississippi State, then came to WKU to serve the 2012-13 season as an assistant under Ray Harper. He was named Troy’s head coach in 2013 and has been with the Trojans the past six years.

The Campbellsville native has stayed in close contact with Stansbury, who called Cunningham “one of my closest friends.”

“We go back many years, back from days where I played college basketball at Campbellsville (University) for his dad when Phil was a little boy running around,” Stansbury said Monday on his weekly radio show. …

“Phil, I’ve always said, is one of the best coaches out there. Nobody worked harder than Phil – grinds, good people.”

Cunningham went to Starkville in 2000 after working under Hall of Fame coach Lefty Driesell at James Madison and Georgia State. He called a full-time SEC assistant’s job “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“The thing from a personal standpoint that I always appreciate about coach Stansbury is he let me grow into that role,” Cunningham said. “Probably for the first four or five years, I was young and hard-headed and thought I had all the answers. He was patient with me and let me develop into a more experienced coach.

“He told me, ‘Experience is everything,’ but when you’re young, you never believe that. He was dead right. I just got better as it went along. We got better.”

Cunningham was by Stansbury’s side as the Bulldogs consistently signed highly-touted recruiting classes.

He developed a niche recruiting in Tennessee, where he secured the commitments of standouts Jamont Gordon, Barry Stewart and Jarvis Varnado.

Those players were contributors on teams that won two Southeastern Conference Tournament titles, an outright SEC regular-season crown and five SEC West Division banners during those days.

Cunningham reflected on wins Mississippi State scored during those days against Bruce Pearl-coached Tennessee, Billy Donovan-led Florida and his home-state powerhouse Kentucky.

He said he also plays “the ‘What if?’ game’ in his head about narrow losses the Bulldogs suffered – most notably the 2010 SEC Tournament title game against Kentucky.

“John Wall’s 3-pointer in the last few seconds in the 2010 SEC Tournament, if it hits the rim instead of being an airball and falling into DeMarcus Cousins’ hands, go look at the numbers if it happened,” Cunningham said.

“That would’ve been our seventh NCAA Tournament in nine years. That’s unheard of at a place like Mississippi State. That would’ve been a third SEC Tournament title in about an eight-year span – unheard of at a place like Mississippi State.”

Stansbury’s resignation at Mississippi State in 2012 was a tough moment for Cunningham because of how much of his life he’d built in Starkville, he said.

“When you coach, your whole existence is based on if your team is up or down,” Cunningham said. “We were all in it together and had such a great run. I was a Mississippi State Bulldog all the way.

“When it ended, it was tough. I didn’t realize that at the time until I got away from it.”

Cunningham found what he called an “incredible” landing spot at WKU, where he worked for a season with Harper.

The 2012-13 Hilltoppers went through a sluggish regular season, got hot late, won the Sun Belt Conference Tournament and advanced to the NCAA. That year still marks WKU’s last trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Cunningham had a hand in coaching Topper stars George Fant and T.J. Price. He also recruited Chris Harrison-Docks, Trency Jackson and Aleksej Rostov to Bowling Green.

Sunday will mark Cunningham’s second time coaching in E.A. Diddle Arena since leaving WKU for Troy’s head coaching job. His Trojans lost 81-76 to Harper’s Hilltoppers on Feb. 13, 2014, during the schools’ final year together in the Sun Belt.

“It was a wonderful opportunity,” Cunningham said of working at WKU. “I loved the players. I can look back at some of the players on the team. They were such good people and so fun to be around.

“Man, it was really a healing year for me because leaving Mississippi State, it was extremely tough.”

Cunningham’s tenure at Troy so far has been highlighted by the team’s 2016-17 campaign. The Trojans went 22-15, won their first SBC Tournament title and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for just the second time.

The 2018-19 Troy squad comes to Diddle Arena on Sunday with a 4-5 record. The Trojans’ leading scorer is Jordon Varnado (15.7 points per game), the younger brother of Jarvis Varnado.

“Troy is like a Mississippi State,” Cunningham said. “It’s tough to win at basketball in Troy.

“But I had a great example from what coach Stansbury did at Mississippi State and how hard you have to work. You’ve got to get great players and do a great job in preparation for your opponent.”{&end}