lets be rational here (i know that's difficult for many of you)

[dosequisdawg]

any reasonable basketball fan should know by now that there are games that are neither surprising norseason cripplinglosses. among those are losing to a rival on the road even if you are the better team. statistics (win/loss records) support that fact across conferences and over many years. i don't know why many of you think MSU should be immune to this. in fact, any team outside of the elite is generally very happy with a 4-4road conference record. why? because road conference wins are just tough to come by, as we found out today. what would be considered a bad loss would have been losing to georgia or arkansas at home. as much as you think MSU shouldn't be subject to the ebbs and flows of conference basketball, well, you're wrong. let's just wait and see what the total body of work is gonna be.

 

[JimC1097]

We were set up for a loss. Season is still salvageable and we are still in first place..

 

[OEMDawg]

Once again, when we get that #9 seeding in March, you'll understand.<div>
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[JimC1097]

[No message]

 

[whatever.sixpack]

I agree, although it was a game on the road that you'd like to get since it wasn't an elite team, even the elite teams struggle on the road against mediocre teams.
Notice that UGA blew out UT today

 

[topdawg.sixpack]

Alabama DID NOT play a good game, in fact, they did everything they could to give us a win, but we did not take it. Now if Alabama came out and shot 70something %, well, that is a road loss....Yea, we played bad too, but good teams should win games like that.<div>
</div><div>Also, why should we be happy with a 4-4 road record, especially seeing we play UK and UT at home this year?</div>

 

[dosequisdawg]

first: OEM, i do understand. I will be disappointed if we are a 9 seed this year, which may very well happen. that hasn't happened yet though. unlike rugby and others im not gonna project our seeding quite yet or speculate that we're an NIT team bc we lost a road game that we knew was gonna be a tough one.

topdawg: we have played so many rugged games like that against alabama i simply don't expect to win all of them. sometimes we're better than them, sometimes they're better than us, but that doesn't always determine who wins in this rivalry. we always play sloppy, rugged, ugly games against them. im not excusing the loss,im pissed too,i guess im just not surprised by it nor do i think itsa totally devastating loss. my point about road wins wasn'tspecifically about our schedule this year, it was more to say that if you can get to .500 on the road and take of business athome in the league you're looking at 10-6 to 12-4 in conference. we've had 2 SEC road games, both tough, and we are 1-1 in them.

look, we'renot as good as i hoped we would be. it would be nice to have sidney, but outside of that we really misselgin. he's the only bruiser on the team. he wouldhave really helped this year.

 

[Irondawg]

I know some people overreact, but the deal is that in all reality this a team that's just very hard to watch. We seemlingly don't play with a lot of effort or enthusiasm and our offensive strategy is just bewildering to most folks. On top of that our defense is far below what we've come to expect from most Stans coached teams.

I don't think anybody expected us to go undefeated. Certainly you're going to lay an egg here or there and sometimes you're just going to be outplayed. But this team has put out a lot of "eggs" already - some of which have actually turned into victories despit that. Mainly because the the SEC for the most part is still fairly down, especially the west with the exception of OM.

Let's face it - most Stans teams have been offensively challenged for some time now but we generally played with effort and hustle and outworked a lot of teams. Plus we've always had an offensive post presence. All that's lacking this year so far. Thus all the stuff we've overlooked for years is being complained about more.

I've said from the start that we were a little overated and our talent is not that great. I still think we might make the tourney, but it's going to be in the 7-11 range which pretty much means a 1st or 2nd round exit yet again. But that won't really disappoint me this year b/c I honestly don't think we're a top 16 team. I just want to see the effort on a nightly basis.

Stans somewhere changed his recruiting from hustle players to shooters, but didn't change the offense to get those shooters good looks. So now we can't get quality shots and the defense is suffering. Bad combination.

...and next year could be really bad.

 

[dosequisdawg]

with just about all of what you said. we've gotta stop wasting offensive possessions to truly get better. hopefully we can do that. we are close to having relegated ourselves to a 7-11 seed as you say, but we've got 2 big opportunities in home gamesand if youget to sunday or win the conference tourney that can improve your seeding by 2 seeds, sometimes 3 if you win it. even ifeverything falls into place and we get a 5 or 6 seed, im stillnot convinced we'll win that second round game unless we are a vastly better and more efficient team when that time rolls around.