Basketball is an urban game played by urbanites for the most part. To even get the amount of talent that comes now to the SEC speaks more of our money and facilities than any desire for kids to come play here for college. And high schools in the south focus more on football and baseball than basketball. MSU basketball, as much as we all want it to get better, just has fundamental problems against it that have to be dealt with before even thinking about national power. Sure, we'll luck into some major talent every now and then, but we won't get the kind of player depth necessary to consistently build a national player. It doesn't matter who the coach is.
I think that's one of the reasons that Stansbury recruits like he does. He gets players that are athletic in talent but raw in skill (Rhodes, Campbell, Varnado, Turner, Gordon, Zimmerman), or players that have developed completely but have fundamental weaknesses that prevent them from being top-notch basketball plaers (Stewart, Bost, Osby, Power). I think Stansbury does good building up what he has, but there isn't any top-tier talent here. (On a talent scale in the SEC, I'd say we're just above Vanderbilt, LSU, and South Carolina currently, but everyone else is way more talented 1-12. Yes even Georgia). Yeah, Stansbury isn't a great gameday coach, but he's an good preparation coach. He's a good recruiter for where he operates, but not a national power recruiter. He is what he is, but I think we're better off with him. For what we get here in terms of players, I think Stansbury does a good job.
