I appreciate the way Jans saves State money
- Thread starter TheBannerM
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How funny would it be if Larry Templeton is a Sixpacker?
Seems more like a quart guy than sixpacker
He apparently doesn't ***** himself out at the end of every season to the highest bidder like Mullen tried to do to get raises so at least there's that too
who-re isn't an acceptable word at On3, who knew....
Kind of different and goes against the 6-Pack narrative, but Larry Templeton was the only AD that ever came up to me, offered to shake hands, and started a conversation at a school event. Byrne, Stricklin, and Cohen never did....I had to go up to them, introduce myself, and then offered to shake their hands. Never met Selmon, so I don't know what he's like socially.
I've had the exact opposite encounter with Lonnie. Colossal elitist richard-head to my wife and me.
Byrne walked the stands at every sport thanking fans and shaking hands. He might not remember a name but he seemed to remember a face. That guy knew the assignment!
Templeton never did that with me. Cohen did several times. Stricklin once. Have not seen salmon.
Went to the Liberty Bowl on a whim back in '97. Was visiting family and USM was playing in it. We decided to go while we were in Memphis anyway. We got hungry and walked over to the Mid South Coliseum where they had a pep rally going on and a lot of food with a very long food line. We were way in the back of that line. Dude walks up to my wife and I and starts up a casual conversation. He had a sport coat on but I didn't know this guy. After we'd chatted a while, he tells my wife and I to follow him. He takes us in this room with the biggest spread of food for VIPs you'd ever seen. No line. "Enjoy!", he tells us. It was Mike Slive
Cuntshit is, you can use it
Just when I thought you couldn't get any more genespage.....
Funny b/c Byrne and Stricklin shook a lot of hands including mine and i'm a peon. But I witnessed them doing it a lot.
Thanks, I'll add it to my acceptable online vocabulary
He is using the resources he is given
Every baseball game I ever saw Cohen at he would enter the Dude through CF fence entrance that the field maintenance crew uses, with the cell phone glued to his ear, walk straight across the field to the dugout and then to the Dugout Club or whatever it's called. Game day employees told me he would hang out down there in the halls and offices to avoid fans in the club too. He did it every time that way, avoiding all contact with fans
"Just keep it in the black, Coach."
Jans has been terrible recruiting from top to bottom. Name the HS talent he's brought in other than Hubb. Now look at the couple portal guys who came and sat out and no difference makers at all. He's a good coach at State, where nobody can recruit. Whether it's NIL or just a State thing, we 17ing suck at getting players here.
I met the ninja. After he walked away from our small group, my roommate asked what we were all thinking: “was he being a smartass?” It was an odd conversation.
This is MSU's problem in a nutshell. Even in baseball, it's difficult to get the best players unless they are from MS or surrounding states.
Lot of reasons for it but they don't matter because they aren't changing in the near term.
Byrne is also the only AD to ever call me and have a good 10-minute conversation with me. The athletic dept had either sent an email or on the website requesting feedback, so I responded and figured that's the end of that. About 15-minutes later our receptionist buzzed me saying a Mr. Byrne was calling me. Very impressive and nice guy.
I guess his plan is to roll with the freshmen he has coming in. Grace, Bartlett, davis-fleming are all 4 stars. Paul is a high 3*. It'd be nice if Machot is more skilled than Chol.
We're going to hit the portal but I think both basketball programs are needing to start signing/developing some talent too. We can't just be a portal program.
The Ninja sat down with me and 3 of my buddies at a bar one night( can’t recall the name, it was beside old Venice and had to walk up stairs). He politely sat down, introduced himself and asked all 4 of us how we felt the program was going and anything they could do to make it better.
His downfall was Croom, hiring him and keeping him around five years too long, the hiring of Polk the second time and keeping him around. Some good things did happen when he was here. Stadium expansion, final four in basketball, several CWS appearance and a SEC West Championship with a trip to Atlanta in football. But his last years he let things go to ****. That is what he is being remembered for and the booger in nose. Who ever filmed Thunder and Lightning should have said something to him. "Sir before we start filming could you blow you nose?" That's all it would have taken.
Striklin did it too. It was just about the only thing he was good at.
Selmon will glad hand too.
But there's a helluva lot more to being an AD than this. It's funny that good ol' leeinator thinks it's important. I don't care if the AD is on the jumbotron flipping everyone the bird as long as he's holding coaches accountable and investing in the right things.
I cant imagine caring if, at a large event, an AD talks to me or not. Its interesting what some people prioritize or what stays with some people years after. Nothing wrong with prioritizing a handshake as a measure of a public facing representative's value.
2022 recruiting class as a whole was largely set when Jans came in, given he was a spring hire and top HS recruits are mostly all committed(and signed) by then. Kimani Hamilton was a high recruit and definitely 'HS talent'. He left after that first year and has done well at the lower D1 level.
The team already had a lot of experienced players in the main rotation so there wasnt even a need or room to sign more HS players.
2023 recruiting class was small and that was fine because much of the core team that would see the court was returning. He did flip Hubbard when the opportunity presented itself. The team already had a lot of experienced players so there wasnt even a need or room to sign more HS players. He got a quality big man transfer in Bell.
2024 was a focus on transfers instead of top100 level HS players and on paper, it was a HUGE success. In practice it was a success, but not a huge success.
2025 is a mix between HS and transfers. We have 4 HS players that are all 4* this recruiting cycle and 2 are top100.
Why in the world do you think there were no difference makers that came to MSU under Jans? You continue to show total ignorance when it comes to basketball in general, and MSU basketball specifically.
Dashawn Davis ran the point and was a difference maker that helped us win games.
Jimmy Bell was absolutely a difference maker and helped us win games. He started for a handful of games when Tolu was hurt and he provided great minutes for the rest of the season.
Riley Kugel was frustrating to watch, but he definitely helped us win games when he was on.
RJ Melendez was absolutely a difference maker with his hustle and effort.
Claudell Harris Jr was clearly a difference maker and helped us win multiple games(vs if he didnt play).
Michael Nwoko was totally a difference maker. He frustrated teams left and right last season.
It seems like you are focusing on Clary and Andrew Taylor when you complain about transfer players. Meanwhile, 5 of the 7 transfers in the last couple seasons were huge for us.
Why are you focused specifically on HS talent in 2025? Most great teams are made up of a mix of HS and transfer signees and the key is to get them to gel correctly for that season. Then at the end of the season, you figure out who is staying, who is leaving, what HS recruits you landed, and you work on landing more transfers to fill in the gaps.
Jans has managed to get his teams to the NCAA Tournament 3 years out of 3, and all were at-large bids. Hell yes I would love to see 5* players walking around on the court, but that doesnt mean Jans has been terrible at recruiting.
I think bringing in highschool talent is a waste of time unless they’re a day one difference maker like Hubbard. Otherwise if they don’t play they just leave.
Maybe, but that means you have to maximize the portal and Jan's hasn't. Jan's inherited more talent than he's recruited. I'm still saying it's a MSU problem though. I like Jans a lot, he's a good coach who needs players in a bad way.
Here is the tldr-
You continually show you dont understand the overall game of basketball and your post completely ignores the nuance of signing players each year to fill out a specific team in the age of the transfer portal.
Except we haven't really done that to a level beyond a bid. We're coming up on year 4, it's time to sign legitimate players, not roster stuffers who sit out. Basketball getting a bid is great but in year 4, it's time to move up. I doubt we can do that. Look what Beard has done in less time. It took OM firing a coach to get Hubb. Time to step it up! Every year I hear we've brought in a great class, & every year it's the same thing so far. That's was ok to start with, but progression needs to happen.
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If you were able to read more than a few lines of a post, you would see I already addressed your absurd claim that we sign roster stuffers who sit out. 5 of 7 transfer players in the last 2 seasons were heavy rotation players. Yep, 2 were busts. 5 werent. You cant expect every transfer to work out.
And you're ignoring that in year four of any sport, it should be better than the first three if you're bringing in talent and are a good coach. Just getting a bid can't be the ceiling. Both arguments are valid. Jans moved us up when he arrived, but it's time to take that next step. I want to see who he signs, but so far, it looks similar to the first portal classes. Our talent is gone minus Hubbard, so we need proven talent.
We've just signed another kid who will be on his third team who was a rotation guy. We signed a bigger guard who can't shoot. I mean it all looks familiar to me. Go get a real 5 and real shooters because we return almost nothing. This time next year, we should be saying that Sweet 16 run was awesome! I bet you thought the team would be better than it was this year, I know I did. I expected to win in the tourney a couple games being about a 5 seed. But we fell apart end of season again and never really looked like a good team.