I really dont even know what your point is here. Are you upset with Ray for not keeping this group together? Are you upset with Stans for not keeping this group together? Are you upset that Stans didnt suspend enough players for long enough times? Are you upset with Ray for suspending too many for too long?
Its just such an odd post because you include players who were gone before last year's season even started.
- DJ Gardner? Really?...is he even still playing? I dont think he is. He was at JUCO last season, but now?...
- Shawn Long? Didnt he leave school shortly after classes started to be at home and had a kid born? He never even played for us. Though from having followed his stats, he would have been a HUGE benefit to the team. Seriously huge.
- Moultrie?...he was a first round pick, are you including him because he would have stayed? Or just longingly wishing he were still here?
You list a mix of last season players, this season players, and players who never even suited up for MSU. They werent all going to play together, unless first round Moultrie was going to come back for a 5th year of college, and unless players whose behavior was slightly less than impressive suddenly improved.
Odd post.
Looks as most of you guys, including coach34 are getting just what you asked for. Fire Stans and we'll get this great national coach to take us to the promise land. How is that working for you?
Looks as most of you guys, including coach34 are getting just what you asked for. Fire Stans and we'll get this great national coach to take us to the promise land. How is that working for you?
My only issue is the fact that some of this is self-inflicted and some is not. I understand injuries and I understand transfers, those are things a coach can't control. However, are you telling me that Rick Ray is doing such a lousy job of getting players to buy into his way of doing things that he is forced to kick off 2 players (Ziedaks and Smith) and suspend 3 others at various times (Borchert, Steele and RJohnson) while there is a rumor out there of potentially another suspension on the way? I feel this way about Ray just as I felt when Croom was kicking off and suspending football players left and right. And that is that its just as big a responsibility on a coach, if not moreso, to convince your players to buy into living up to the standards you're asking for as it is to dole out some discipline when they don't. So for THIS many players to have discipline issues before and during the season it sounds like to me Ray is having some trouble selling what he's preaching. So part of our issues is just bad luck but some of it is just our coaches and players shooting themselves in the foot REPEATEDLY. I don't know of another program in this country that have had this many players either be booted from the team or lose playing time over off the court stuff.
How can you call it a flub of a hire at this point? Seriously? If its due to the results then you are an idiot and don't understand sports.
Rick Ray is feeling really sorry for himself and wants you to know that you should feel sorry for him too.
Rick Ray, on short bench: "There’s nobody in the country that has gone through what we’ve went through. I don’t care what level."
Rick Ray, on people who say they understand what he's going through: "No you don't. You really don't."
he is getting defensive. and its getting old. shut up, stop complaining. coach and recruit. sell, don't complain about what you can't do. you have 4 years and are being paid handsomely
He also says his recent comments about the “unique situation” he’s facing — six scholarship players, three major knee injuries, suspensions and attrition — is not a cry for help. He clarified his comments stemming from his appearance on the SEC teleconference this afternoon when he sat down with local reporters in Starkville.
“I’m not trying to remind anybody, I’m just trying to say what it actually is,” Ray said. “I don’t need people to feel sorry about what’s going on for me or for our team. I’m not trying to garner, ‘Hey, you do remember we only have this?’ I’m just stating facts. I don’t have an agenda behind it.”
you obviously have never dealt with young athletes...sometimes no matter what you say or do; or what consequences you put in place kids are going to do what they want and hope they get away with it. stupidity on the part of the players is not on ray.
We suck this year. I just don't think you can judge anything our basketball team does this season in regards to Ray's coaching abilities. If we had some able bodies, I would tend to look with a more critical eye.
Rick Ray is feeling really sorry for himself and wants you to know that you should feel sorry for him too.
Rick Ray, on short bench: "There’s nobody in the country that has gone through what we’ve went through. I don’t care what level."
Rick Ray, on people who say they understand what he's going through: "No you don't. You really don't."
In a sense, is it almost not a fair fight with the short bench?
That’s a good question. The thing that we have to realize, and our team knows it, is there’s nobody – there’s nobody – in the country that has went through what we’ve went through. I don’t care what level: NAIA, Division II, junior college. With the numbers that we have. I would wonder if anybody in history of college basketball has gone through what we’ve went through as far as the off-the-court issues and the injuries. It’s been a trying season and to our guys’ credit they’ve really hung in there and tried to be good citizens and do some of the things we want them to do on the court and continue to try to compete. When someone says I understand what you’re going through, no you don’t. You really don’t. You can’t use it as an excuse at the end of the day. You have to go out and try to compete and win ball games because no one is cancelling the season.
This is true. I'm not critical of his game coaching so far, other that one or two bizarre in game decisions. The coaching part is up in the air. I am critical of other things he is doing.
I'll take a jab at the recruiting thus far. They appeared to jettison Gray to bring in Bloodman and Davis. Davis hurt his knee, which was unfortunate. But if this staff saw anything in Bloodman that would indicate he could play PG in what is supposed to be a Big 6 league, I wonder about their talent evaluation skills. And before you start with the agenda talk, it reminds me of Stansbury bringing in guys like Benock at the end of a class.
If you have any objectivity at all, you would call the fall class uninspired at best. College basketball - with its reliance on the AAU culture - has become more about Jims and Joes than any other sport and there is nothing eye popping about Ray's first 7 recruits.
Granted I haven't seem them play much, but the few games I have watched, I've seen nothing out of the ordinary from an X and 0 standpoint. And IMHO, anybody who has, has an agenda.
Ray is misguided. Let them boys smoke a lil dope and miss a few classes. We want to win ball games; producing responsible, productive citizens is secondary.