Hate to interrupt this regularly scheduled football season, but...

[vandaldawg]

anybody have any thoughts on the juco shooting guard from Tuscaloosa that just committed? Travis Daniels is his name I think. I searched but I could find no mention of it. He's certainly got good size for an SG, but is he worth a damn? Hard to believe he is if Bama let him get out of their own back yard. I can't find much about the guy. Coach?

 

[Shmuley]

Good length. You can find references to his being "recruited by multiple division 1 programs" but jortfro lists "offers" from us, Western Kentucky and Mississippi Southern. The limited film I saw showed some good moves for a big man, but I didn't see quickness. Again, there's not a lot out there.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

He was labeled an "impact player" yet averaged 6 and 5 last year. I can hardly contain my enthusiasm.

 

[Irondawg]

I'm skeptical, mostly because I could find no video footage of him. I have no idea what Ray is looking for though.

 

[aTotal360]

I have no idea what Ray is looking for though.

a pulse

 

[fishwater99]

He is a SF/PF, not a SG...

6'8 , 205 lbs


Looks like a Big Body, we need someone else to play down low..

 

[MadDawg.sixpack]

This ****'s gonna be good. ***

 

[KurtRambis4]

I'm

not sure that I would classify someone as a "Big Body" that is currently 6'8" 205.

 

[Seinfeld]

God, I hope things don't turn out this way... but this is beginning to seem more and more like Croom Part 2 every day.

 

[thunderclap]

+1

 

[gtowndawg]

Croomed or deathrayed...pick your poison**

nm

 

[vandaldawg]

They listed him as SG on the lake. I know, I know. Just saying.

 

[johnson86-1]

Why are people assuming Ray can't coach?

God, I hope things don't turn out this way... but this is beginning to seem more and more like Croom Part 2 every day.

Obviously we're in ****** position right now as a program, but does anybody have a reason to think Ray is incompetent? Who exactly should he have been able to recruit coming in when he did? And if he can coach at all, aren't we in a much better position than we were with Crooms?

 

[Lawdawg.sixpack]

Maybe he is a wing slasher.

...

 

[KurtRambis4]

**Most likely

*

 

[Irondawg]

if he wants to win he's got to find a couple of double digit scorers in this class. Now if this guy is shut-down defender or something that fits another role that's part of his puzzle, that's fine. But he's got to land at least one scorer in this next class and one solid post player.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

He was labeled an "impact player" yet averaged 6 and 5 last year. I can hardly contain my enthusiasm.

You always love to see quotes like this from recruits "While they were recruiting me they never backed off like other schools".

I said when Ricky Ray was hired that you would be able to tell a lot about him from his first spring/fall signing classes. He seems to be the Sylvester Croom "Im so good I can win with diamond in the roughs" type.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

not sure that I would classify someone as a "Big Body" that is currently 6'8" 205.

And I'm not sure I would classify someone who averaged 6 and 5 in JUCO ball someone who can play down low. Especially someone who admitted schools had backed off during his commitment interview.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

The dumpster fire may quickly become a wild fire.

 

[QuaoarsKing]

For the 1000th time, quit making a race-based comparison of Ray and Croom. There is nothing else similar about them.

If Ray turns out to be incompetent, then fine, compare him to Croom. But wait until there's a shred of evidence of that..

 

[Dawgpile]

What's a "wing-slasher"?
.
.
.
.
.
I miss Jr.

 

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

I wasn't sure I'd classify you as a douche, but you're making it pretty hard to think otherwise

*Whine* Stansbury got fired *Whine* The new coach sucks even though he's yet to coach a game and I have to ***** about his uncomfirmed inability to recruit in his first couple of months to the dumpster baby of a program he was hired to fix *Whine* Bring back Stansbury *Whine* If we still had Stansbury we'd be a ****** team, but dammit Stansbury gives good head *Whine* Coach Ray is the same as Coach Croom even though he's yet to coach a game so saying that is an asinine 17ing thing to say *Whine*

I hope you have at least 3 balls of delicious Mississippi State Edam cheese to go along with all that whine, and a family pack of extra heavy flow tampons so you can make it through the night without ruining your furniture

 

[KurtRambis4]

Make no

mistake, JR is aroud here somewhere. Hell, as bad as he was, he's not half as bad as some of the geniuses we've got now.

 

[DAWG61]

Ray is obviously collecting a team full of the basketball Tim Tebows'.

All they do is win. Stats don't matter.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-4v2bkOhl0Y

Sorry iPad won't let me directly post videos even when I use the film button.

 

[VegasDawg13]

I have never seen anyone so clearly root against their own school like you.

You are absolutely pathetic.

Seriously, **** you.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

I wasn't sure I'd classify you as a douche, but you're making it pretty hard to think otherwise

*Whine* Stansbury got fired *Whine* The new coach sucks even though he's yet to coach a game and I have to ***** about his uncomfirmed inability to recruit in his first couple of months to the dumpster baby of a program he was hired to fix *Whine* Bring back Stansbury *Whine* If we still had Stansbury we'd be a ****** team, but dammit Stansbury gives good head *Whine* Coach Ray is the same as Coach Croom even though he's yet to coach a game so saying that is an asinine 17ing thing to say *Whine*

I hope you have at least 3 balls of delicious Mississippi State Edam cheese to go along with all that whine, and a family pack of extra heavy flow tampons so you can make it through the night without ruining your furniture

For someone who is trying to bust balls about whining, you are certainly doing a lot of whining about someone who doesn't share your opinion of Ricky Ray. I hope he does great, but I know enough about college basketball to know that you need Jim's and Joe's to go with the x's and o's. I'll give him a pass on his spring classes because he was just filling slots. But if he's as good a recruiter as you probably think he is, he needs to make a statement with this year's class. And what appears to be a string bean post player who managed a single/single in JUCO - who other schools backed off of - doesn't make a statement.

Funny thing, I got the same kind of responses when I questioning the Croom hiring.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

For the 1000th time, quit making a race-based comparison of Ray and Croom. There is nothing else similar about them.

If Ray turns out to be incompetent, then fine, compare him to Croom. But wait until there's a shred of evidence of that..

Based on his early recruiting efforts, there is a shred of evidence that Ricky Ray, too, is comfortable with taking tier 2 (or 4) players. THAT reminds me of Croom. It also reminds me of Rod Barnes.

 

[cofreb]

Outside perspective:

this sounds like a Rod Barnes special, maybe not quite as bad, but Barnes worked hard to boldly set the bar where no man had been before nor would go again.

I remember when Barnes signed Lonnie Jackson, a guy who didn't even start on his JUCO team. The Spirit Party Line was that the guy in front of Lonnie was going to declare for the draft and be a lottery pick or something {right out of JUCO, because that always happens}, and that our 'excellent scouting' had turned up this diamond in the rough. Well, towards the end of the season the guy in front of Lonnie got hurt. So a friend went to see Lonnie, who was 6-10, get his first major action of the season against a team that had no players over 6-5. Lonnie played 35 minutes, and finished with 0 points and 1 rebound. Lets just say, based on Lonnie's later performance in Oxford, that evening was not an aberration. Ah, the memories of the later Barnes years...

 

[MadDawg.sixpack]

Your a dubmass.

Seriously, **** you too, dipshit.

 

[DirtyDog]

Given the basketball situation that is MSU right now, the best recruiting tool we have is that they can play right away. There are simply alot better programs throughout college basketball for the premier players to go to. We simply have to hope that Coach Ray can settle in and build a relationship with high school players that are sophomores and juniors. I doubt we'll sign a stud this class even with "relentless" recruiting effort because he simply won't have reached them early enough. The best I think we can hope for is that there's a "homer" or an in-state kid that is a stud and wants to start for 4 years. I think that the Coach is hoping that he can pull together a solid squad with Ware and Sword and Thomas and a few puzzle pieces just long enough till he can develop relationships with younger players and entice them to come to State over alternative D-I schools. Either that or Shmuley is going to have to drop a bag of cash at some kids door with a cowbell in it.

 

[johnson86-1]

What blue chippers do you think he should be able to get that he's not?

Based on his early recruiting efforts, there is a shred of evidence that Ricky Ray, too, is comfortable with taking tier 2 (or 4) players. THAT reminds me of Croom. It also reminds me of Rod Barnes.

It'd be nice if he could come in and in 6 months steal somebody that other schools have been recruiting for 3 years, but if the player doesn't have a tie to MSU, that's just not an easy sell. And I'm pretty sure the problem is not that Ray is sitting on his golfcart rather than recruiting hard. We basically know nothing about Ray right now except that he walked into a ****** situation, and he's black. That's about all the Croom similarities we have, and really only the second is a similarity, because Croom stepped into a situation where a good coach could have taken the talent around him and quickly turned things around, where as Ray is basically building a team from scratch.

 

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

I'm not "whining" about anything. I'm saying that anyone who refuses to give our

basketball coach the chance to even coach a single game before declaring that he is the worst thing since colon cancer is just an *******. Calling you an ******* is not "whining". You bitching and moaning and crying that your favorite coach is no longer around, and preemptively declaring our new coach a failure because you are ********, IS "whining".

You can say you want him to do well all you want. But that's not true. You want him to fail, so that you can come running back here and say "SEE I TOLD YOU SO!!!!". You are more worried about the fact that we fired your boy than you are about the welfare of the basketball program. You're not alone either. For whatever reason, there are lots of Stansbury supporters within our fan base who want nothing more than 3 years of extremely ****** basketball just so you/they can tell everyone you/they were right and that Stansbury should never have been fired.

You are all ********. Every. Last. One. Of. You. Support your school. If we get to the end of the year and have what looks to be a terrible incoming class for next year and have only won 1 game this year, then by all means, voice your displeasure. Spouting off about how bad our coach is at this point in time, however, is asinine and childish.

 

[Shmuley]

OK, I've held my f'n water as long as I can. Johnson, this is not directed just at you. I'm jumping into the thread as a reply to you in order to best illustrate the principle that I am espousing.

Posters are asking some form of the question, "Why is everyone assuming Ray is incompetent?" And therein lies the problem. Hell, flip the question around: WHY IS ANYONE ASSUMING RAY IS COMPETENT? This is the dilemma. The correct question is this: Why did we let our basketball program get into such a bad situation that our green AD was left rummaging through the sale bin at Dollar Tree for a coach? Why in the hell did we hire this guy?

I say, it's time to get off of Ray and let him have at it. Who can fault him for taking this gig? Hell, it's f'n Christmas in the Ray household. I say, Ray should make hay while the sun is shining, because the expectations are as low as they can possibly get. The questions about this hire and the feeling of depression or disgust surrounding this soot-covered, burned out frame of a program should not be aimed at Ray.

 

[Sutterkane]

**** that was good. Thanks man; I needed a good laugh.

 

[johnson86-1]

OK, I've held my f'n water as long as I can. Johnson, this is not directed just at you. I'm jumping into the thread as a reply to you in order to best illustrate the principle that I am espousing.

Posters are asking some form of the question, "Why is everyone assuming Ray is incompetent?" And therein lies the problem. Hell, flip the question around: WHY IS ANYONE ASSUMING RAY IS COMPETENT? This is the dilemma. The correct question is this: Why did we let our basketball program get into such a bad situation that our green AD was left rummaging through the sale bin at Dollar Tree for a coach? Why in the hell did we hire this guy?

I say, it's time to get off of Ray and let him have at it. Who can fault him for taking this gig? Hell, it's f'n Christmas in the Ray household. I say, Ray should make hay while the sun is shining, because the expectations are as low as they can possibly get. The questions about this hire and the feeling of depression or disgust surrounding this soot-covered, burned out frame of a program should not be aimed at Ray.

This is exactly where I'm coming from. Obviously, there's nothing about the hire that should get people excited unless they know something about Ray that the general public doesn't (The spin I tell myself is there is no way we had to go to a complete unknown to get a coach, and somebody that knows something about basketball must have seen something they liked in Ray for him to get the nod). And yes, hiring a basketball coach into a good situation is a crap shoot, so it's not exactly likely that Ray will be able to put out the smoldering ashes of our dumpster fire and build a program from scratch before fans get tired of him.

But that said, Ray hasn't done anything to deserve a comparison to Crooms. At the time we hired Crooms, I bet somebody that knew something about football could have found 30 (maybe 100) college coaches that no fan knew anything about that would have easily done a better job than Crooms. I'm assuming that even if we had to dig deep in the barrel for the basketball hire, we still were able to find decent if not great candidates. Until Ray gives me a reason to think otherwise, I'm going to assume (1) he will work hard, (2) he will take responsibility for his 17ups and not throw players under the bus, (3) he is grateful for the opportunity, and (4) he knows something about basketball other than copying an offense his prior coaches have used that is not suited to the college game. In other words, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is not Crooms. While venting to a message board doesn't matter, I still think it's kind of sorry for fans to compare him to Crooms.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

basketball coach the chance to even coach a single game before declaring that he is the worst thing since colon cancer is just an *******. Calling you an ******* is not "whining". You bitching and moaning and crying that your favorite coach is no longer around, and preemptively declaring our new coach a failure because you are ********, IS "whining".

You can say you want him to do well all you want. But that's not true. You want him to fail, so that you can come running back here and say "SEE I TOLD YOU SO!!!!". You are more worried about the fact that we fired your boy than you are about the welfare of the basketball program. You're not alone either. For whatever reason, there are lots of Stansbury supporters within our fan base who want nothing more than 3 years of extremely ****** basketball just so you/they can tell everyone you/they were right and that Stansbury should never have been fired.

You are all ********. Every. Last. One. Of. You. Support your school. If we get to the end of the year and have what looks to be a terrible incoming class for next year and have only won 1 game this year, then by all means, voice your displeasure. Spouting off about how bad our coach is at this point in time, however, is asinine and childish.

Going into a tirade about our former coach is ******* stupid. You want to point me in the direction of the post where I referred to the former basketball coach in this thread?

I'll hang up and listen, dumb ***.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

It'd be nice if he could come in and in 6 months steal somebody that other schools have been recruiting for 3 years, but if the player doesn't have a tie to MSU, that's just not an easy sell. And I'm pretty sure the problem is not that Ray is sitting on his golfcart rather than recruiting hard. We basically know nothing about Ray right now except that he walked into a ****** situation, and he's black. That's about all the Croom similarities we have, and really only the second is a similarity, because Croom stepped into a situation where a good coach could have taken the talent around him and quickly turned things around, where as Ray is basically building a team from scratch.

We know that he just committed a player that averaged 6 and 5 in JUCO and committed to State because "while they were recruiting me they never backed off like other schools". You MIGHT sign a guy like that on the back end of a class, but never on the front end.

 

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

Couple of things:

1. the tirade is not about the former coach, its about everyone who refuses to get behind the new direction the program is heading in.

2. you didn't have to mention the former coach. If you supported Stansbury's firing, then you wouldn't be on here tearing down the new coach before he even coached a game. The agenda is obvious to any person with half a brain, whether you directly state it or not, so to hide behind the "I never actually said it" defense is asinine. Like I said, you aren't the only one, but that doesn't make it okay.

 

[Shmuley]

I can pretty much live with what you are saying. If it turns out that Ray is what we fear he might be, then the decision to hire him speaks volumes about the ability of the person who hired him.

Unfortunately, we may not be in a position to evaluate this hire properly before we are staring another incredibly important coaching search square in the face.

Keenum, I'm looking at you, MFer.

 

[johnson86-1]

Hopefully basketball will be the next difficult hire we have to make.

I can pretty much live with what you are saying. If it turns out that Ray is what we fear he might be, then the decision to hire him speaks volumes about the ability of the person who hired him.

Unfortunately, we may not be in a position to evaluate this hire properly before we are staring another incredibly important coaching search square in the face.

Keenum, I'm looking at you, MFer.

Baseball, I assume Cohen is here for good unless we chase him off.
Football, hopefully it will either be a while or Hudspeth will continue to perform in a manner that makes the coaching search easy.