Have we underachieved in basketball this year to this point?

[Coach34]

Pretty highly rated recruiting class coming in (PG even had a year of prep school to mature)
Projected draft pick at Center
Some experienced role players in Turner, Johnson, Benock, and Bailey
2 starters returning

Bad losses: San Diego, Charlotte, Texas Tech, Mississippi, Alabama
Unexpected wins- Kentucky

without losses to Bama, SD, and Charlotte, we would be 20-7 and right in the thick of a Tourney berth....or do we just say "we're young, **** happens" and be glad we won a few this year?

 

[Coach34]

Pretty highly rated recruiting class coming in (PG even had a year of prep school to mature)
Projected draft pick at Center
Some experienced role players in Turner, Johnson, Benock, and Bailey
2 starters returning

Bad losses: San Diego, Charlotte, Texas Tech, Mississippi, Alabama
Unexpected wins- Kentucky

without losses to Bama, SD, and Charlotte, we would be 20-7 and right in the thick of a Tourney berth....or do we just say "we're young, **** happens" and be glad we won a few this year?

 

[99jc]

out of conference schedule. So i think overall we have over achieved. a couple of 3's here and there and a layup against LSU and this whole season would be considered great.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

I think you can say that the win at Arkansas was unexpected and I'm sorry but Ole Miss is not a bad loss. They have an RPI in the 60's.

I don't think we have underachieved. Looking before the season, losing someone like Rhodes was going to hurt us more than Gordon. Losing a scoring bigman was going to be tough to replace and JV really hadn't shown us what he could do on the offensive end of the floor. Bost has been a pleasant surprise to me. I never thought he would come in and be as effective as he has been. It looks like prep school helped him out tremendously. Osby has not shown himself yet but thats part of being a true young freshman Thats the only place where you can say "we're young" and it be valid to me. What kills us is our bench. Bailey Johnson and Beckham are just......not good.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

But what the heck...keep whacking there dude.

When does spring football start?

 

[dogfan96]

a shot here or a shot there and the Lakers win the championship instead of the Celtics last year. A play here or there and the Cardinals win the Super Bowl instead of the Steelers. Maybe you didn't expect us to do this well in the SEC before the season started, but after actually starting the season and seeing what the SEC has to offer, there's no way you can deny we've lost to some teams we shouldn't have lost to. Getting blown out by Auburn, losing to Bama and losing at home to mississippi..... not good. Thank goodness we didn't finish choking away the Georgia game.

 

[dogfan96]

you can't lose at home to average teams.</p>

 

[birdZdawg]

nm

 

[DawgatAuburn]

The Ark sweep was expected in October, unexpected in December, and now not surprising in February.

The Ole Miss loss at home is a bad loss. Period. End of Story. Losing any home game is a bad loss when you are trying to compete for conference championships. I will give us the LSU loss since it is now apparent that they are the class of the league and we are at best the fifth best team.

Did I expect us in the NCAAs? No, but I also think there is no excuse for going 0-6 in the SD, Charlotte, UM, at Bama, Texas Tech and Wash State games. Even 3-3 in those games and we are still in the hunt for a bid. We should have beaten SD and Charlotte. No worse than split with UM at home and Bama on the road and no worse than split with WSU and TTU. That's 4-2 and in the middle of things. Whose fault is that? Not saying it is all on Stansbury, but this is far from his best year as a coach.

 

[Croomp]

I agree with u but in all honesty i think we have underachieved in SEC play. Most of our losses have been due to poor decision making on the ball handler. Stewart driving in and being a ball hog in the last game was a mistake. The ball should always be in control by Bost. Another big problem in these double overtime games is losing Varnado since he carries the weight for us until he fouls out (LSU game he got ripped by the ref). If we played level headed in our losses we easily could have prevented 3 of them. (Ole Miss, LSU, and Alabama). Anyone can call it poor coaching but it has a lot to do with our youth and not having our best leader on the court in Varnado. Stewart is one of our leaders but he cannot set the tone and dominate like he thinks.

 

[patdog]

Even though the signing class was pretty highly rated, it was pretty obvious that there was only one immediate impact player in the group, that being Bost. Plus we lost our two best players from last year's team. Most of us knew this was an NIT team at the start of the season, and we look like an NIT team today.

 

[RonnyAtmosphere]

...you posted several hundred times this is a NIT team, & that what this team is...a NIT team.

How can they underachieve when they are doing exactly what you said they would do?

I realize you don't get many predictions right, but this is one of the few you nailed.

So quit stirring the **** & start bragging about how you predicted this was a NIT team.

 

[Berserker.sixpack]

No excuses for the losses to San Diego, UNC-Charlotte, UM, Bama, Texas Tech and Wash State. No excuses for the blowout losses to LSU and Auburn. No excuses for the continual perimter defense inepitude. No excuses for the continual RATs esp to LSU TWICE!

 

[MadDawg.sixpack]

f

 

[Maroon Eagle]

...many reasonable people in the know did not expect MSU to make the NCAA tournament this season after losing the people we did. Predicting MSU to make the NCAA tournament would have been a stretch, maybe not unreasonable, but certainly a somewhat improbable pick based largely on emotion.

 

[Shmuley]

but I recall predicting 18 wins and NIT.

That's what I expected and that's essentially what we're getting.

 

[38843dawg]

You would have been delusional had you thought at the beginning of the season this team would be going to the NCAA Tourney.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

SEC game predictions.

 

[TheBigDA]

$!%$

 

[Shmuley]

Somewhere else I posted the 18 wins/NIT. Hell I may be thinking about 07/08 for all I know. With Stans [at least ever since he lost Stan Jones], you're safe predicting 18 wins and NIT every damn year.

 

[futaba.79]

that we'd struggle because of an inexperienced PG, a lack of scoring inside and inconsistent outside shooting?

 

[Coach34]

even though this person and that person had their preseason predictions, that doesnt matter once the season starts being played. And why I asked the question.
I said we would be NIT, as most people here did.

BUT:

after what has transpired since the season started, have we underachieved considering the people we have lost against? Nobody expected us to go 4-12 in the SEC, so finishing about 8-8 which it appears we will is only a game or two at most above where we were expected to be. But we have alot of those bad losses to outweigh that one extra win or so

 

[Maroon Eagle]

...was a midseason thread that began before SEC conference play started. MSU has done worse than expected against nonconference competition while playing maybe slightly better than expected against conference foes. That being said, I think Charlotte may be a little bit better than first perceived because the 49ers have subsequently defeated both Dayton & Xavier (at home, but still, those schools have much better RPIs than MSU).

Our losses to San Diego and Texas Tech hurt us.

 

[jackbaddawg]

when our guards are off, we lose.It's hard to win with just 1 good big man on the team & hopes that your 3 point shots are gonna be lights out every game. This team desperately needed some points & rebounds from another big man & we just don't have one.Theres where Stans ( the great recruiter ), failed . We don't get big games from any of our big men off the bench. If a miracle doesn't happen & our guards don't get hot as hell & stay hot, we won't be seeing the NCAA tourney or the Not Interested Tourney. Maybe Stans will wake up & try to get us some real good scoring forewards out of junior college in the off season. Those 2 OT losses made me sick as **** along with the San Diego & OM cluster-Fs.