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So far, nothing has worked out the way Roberts planned.

With perhaps only one game remaining in his college career, Roberts will try to salvage what might have been when Mississippi State (23-10) plays top-seeded Duke in the second round of the NCAA tournament's Austin Regional on Sunday.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski will be going for an NCAA tournament record 66th victory, which would move him past Dean Smith. In the first game in Charlotte, top-seeded North Carolina plays Iowa State in a Syracuse Regional matchup.

Roberts knows the game against Duke (26-5) might be his last, but there is no looking back. He has learned that injuries and team turmoil and even a season-ending loss means very little in the grand scheme of things.

"I have been through worse -- way worse and I know the sun is always going to shine through", he said. "Having friends and family die, get killed, there are just so many things worse than having to sit out or hurting yourself."

Roberts is speaking from experience. He was Baylor's leading scorer two seasons ago and thriving at a school close enough to his Houston home for his family to watch him play.

Then the program was ripped apart in scandal after scandal, starting when teammate Patrick Dennehy went missing. When his badly decomposed body was found in July 2003, teammate Carlton Dotson was charged with his murder.

From there it was one thing after another: coach Dave Bliss resigned after admitting to breaking NCAA rules by paying Dennehy and another player, and Bliss was caught on secretly recorded audio tapes asking an assistant to portray Dennehy as a drug dealer.

Roberts and several other Bears fled the program under an NCAA waiver that allowed them to play immediately at their new school. Roberts chose Mississippi State, which was far enough away to distance himself from the Baylor mess, and had a gaping hole that a 6-foot-9, 240 pound forward could fill.

Plus, his teammates left him alone.

"We didn't ask him no questions about it", said guard Winsome Frazier. "We already knew what was going on. We just accepted him as part of the family because we didn't want to add on to it."

Roberts thrived in the change of scenery.

"Mississippi State just gave me the home feeling that I needed after coming out of that situation", he said. "I could lay low and relax and forget about the whole thing there."

He went on to earn the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year award and a spot on the All-America team. He also helped the Bulldogs win the SEC title outright last season for the first time in 41 years and earn the highest NCAA tourney seed in school history, at No. 2, before they were upset in the second round by Xavier.

Roberts then flirted with going to the NBA, competing in the pre-draft camps but not signing with an agent. He waited all the way up until 1 minute before the deadline to decide he was returning to Mississippi State.

The decision has not always looked right.

He was suspended by the NCAA for the first game of the season for accepting -- and later repaying -- expenses for a pre-NBA draft workout. He broke his nose and had to wear a mask through most of the regular season, and spent a night in the hospital after falling hard on his back in practice.

Plus, Mississippi State was failing to meet its own expectations. Ravaged by injuries at every position, the Bulldogs plummeted from the No. 11 ranking after a one-point loss at Tennessee and a 49-point dismantling at Alabama in January.

"It was tough times, the lineups kept changing and I was kind of down", Roberts said. "But I knew we were going to be OK if we kept pushing through."

Despite losing in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament, the Bulldogs think they finally have hit their stride. With everyone at close to 100 percent, and Roberts coming off 23 points and 14 rebounds in a first-round victory over Stanford, Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury is hoping the Bulldogs can ride him a few more weeks.

"It's very obvious what he's meant to our program. Last year we were 26-4, overall champions of the Southeastern Conference, all that started with the play of Lawrence Roberts", Stansbury said. "He's been quite a fixture for us."