My disagreement is more with Daledawg than with you. But a few quick points.
The Richmond metropolitan area has half of the population of the entire State of Mississippi, and VCU is actually in the city. MSU is not located in any of Mississippi's metropolitan areas. And the State of Virginia has other large metropolitan areas, including portions of the DC area, and has 8 million people. In other words, it produces more basketball players.
That's true, of course, but VCU recruits nationally. They have 2 players from the Richmond area, 2 from DC metro, 2 from Norfolk, and 1 from rural north Virginia. The rest of the roster is from rural Tennessee, rural south Florida, Forsyth GA (half way between Atlanta and Macon), NYC, Miami, Winston-Salem NC, Cincinnati, and Columbia SC. They definitely have a nice recruiting base in their area, but it that's not the only reason they're succeeding.
I don't think we're doomed by any stretch of the imagination. I do think we should temper our expectations if they are that we should be in the NCAA tournament most years.
Here we agree I think. Daledawg stated that because of money, prestige, and location there are two post-Stans options: "
1. we bring in a worse coach and we don't compete at all(please see the other SECwest basketball programs)or 2. we bring in a successful coach that leaves after 2 years for bigger and better things (please see Greg Byrne) and then we don't compete at all." I don't accept that at all.
I do not think that comparisons to the top mid-majors is a good comparison. In fact, VCU is a good example. They have every advantage a basketball school can have over MSU except for the size of their conference.
I probably should have gone with my USM example. My point isn't about "top" mid-majors but the many other mid-majors that are putting out basketball teams better than ours without our money, prestige, or location. I'd be happy to trade teams with Southern for the last couple of years. Long term, however, there's no reason Ray--or if not him, someone else--can't build us up to that moderate level of success.
I didn't think we should have fired Stansbury. At the same time, I like Ray and want him to do well. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. I do think our recruiting has to get much better and hope Ray can do it.
I pretty much agree here. I'm more ambivalent about the Stansbury's last few years, but I still appreciate his tenure as a whole. And if Ray can recruit, there's no reason he can't build us into a decent to good team--perhaps even better.