Reasons for choking away an NCAA tournament bid....

[DowntownDawg]

....this is the best I can come up with.

1) Clinching the division against South Carolina. It makes me want to throw up to see "Western Division Champions" T-shirts all over Starkville. We played our best game of the year against SC in terms of focus and execution. We clinched the division. The team drove around looking for a 17ing Krispy Kreme to celebrate. Varnado and Stewart now have that 4th championship in 4 years statistic on top of their personal records. We have obviously emphasized this too much. I am disappointed that we even acknowledged this "championship" with so much left to play for. Obviously, we came out extremely flat against Auburn. Our defensive effort in the first half was very poor, and this basically cost us the game.

2) The Senior Day Ceremony. This was ridiculous. It seemed to last forever. Nevermind warming up. We had to show highlight videos, frame jerseys, soak up the love of the crowd, give hugs and kisses and pose for pictures. Does everybody do this before the game? We didn't warm back up after the ceremony. From the time we left the court to start the ceremony to the time that we tipped off, I am betting there was a good 30-35 minute layoff. UT came back out and warmed up. We soaked up the glory and had our heads in our asses for the first 15 minutes of the game. Which cost us the game. Maybe we got some good pics, though! Seriously, this needs to be toned down. The mood in the room was kind of like "Oh yeah, there's a game to be played."

3) Jarvis has either quit or is worn out. He just stands there. He was totally dominated by UT. He is always winded and gave us absolutely nothing Saturday. He is not very aggressive going after blocks now. Either he's packed it in after getting the record, or he's just played too many minutes this year. And I like Jarvis, but I don't know that he is in my top 10 in terms of basketball

4) The lack of an offense is just a spectacle that is hard to believe. I know it's been covered ad nauseum, but it is really infinitely more painful to watch in person than on TV. We stand there and throw up some junk 3. That's our offense. Jarvis rarely tries to get position. I just can't believe what I watched Saturday in terms of a lack of coaching or organization. We desperately need somebody that can come in here and coach these guys up.

5) The Sidney situation as previously discussed.

We need to flood Byrne's inbox with calls for some new assistants. If that doesn't happen, next year will be very tough and we'll have a head coaching change. I really think that I would prefer for Stansbury to stay around IF he would get a good assistant or two and let that assistant coach run an offense and draw up plays. If he won't do that, then next year will be a painful lame duck season.

 

[DowntownDawg]

....this is the best I can come up with.

1) Clinching the division against South Carolina. It makes me want to throw up to see "Western Division Champions" T-shirts all over Starkville. We played our best game of the year against SC in terms of focus and execution. We clinched the division. The team drove around looking for a 17ing Krispy Kreme to celebrate. Varnado and Stewart now have that 4th championship in 4 years statistic on top of their personal records. We have obviously emphasized this too much. I am disappointed that we even acknowledged this "championship" with so much left to play for. Obviously, we came out extremely flat against Auburn. Our defensive effort in the first half was very poor, and this basically cost us the game.

2) The Senior Day Ceremony. This was ridiculous. It seemed to last forever. Nevermind warming up. We had to show highlight videos, frame jerseys, soak up the love of the crowd, give hugs and kisses and pose for pictures. Does everybody do this before the game? We didn't warm back up after the ceremony. From the time we left the court to start the ceremony to the time that we tipped off, I am betting there was a good 30-35 minute layoff. UT came back out and warmed up. We soaked up the glory and had our heads in our asses for the first 15 minutes of the game. Which cost us the game. Maybe we got some good pics, though! Seriously, this needs to be toned down. The mood in the room was kind of like "Oh yeah, there's a game to be played."

3) Jarvis has either quit or is worn out. He just stands there. He was totally dominated by UT. He is always winded and gave us absolutely nothing Saturday. He is not very aggressive going after blocks now. Either he's packed it in after getting the record, or he's just played too many minutes this year. And I like Jarvis, but I don't know that he is in my top 10 in terms of basketball

4) The lack of an offense is just a spectacle that is hard to believe. I know it's been covered ad nauseum, but it is really infinitely more painful to watch in person than on TV. We stand there and throw up some junk 3. That's our offense. Jarvis rarely tries to get position. I just can't believe what I watched Saturday in terms of a lack of coaching or organization. We desperately need somebody that can come in here and coach these guys up.

5) The Sidney situation as previously discussed.

We need to flood Byrne's inbox with calls for some new assistants. If that doesn't happen, next year will be very tough and we'll have a head coaching change. I really think that I would prefer for Stansbury to stay around IF he would get a good assistant or two and let that assistant coach run an offense and draw up plays. If he won't do that, then next year will be a painful lame duck season.

 

[patdog]

1. WTF? Winning a game cost us the NCAA tournament? That's just dumb. I don't think for a second the team quit playing because they had won an SEC West title. They played like **** against Auburn and Tennessee for the same reasons they've played like **** for most of the season.

2. Agree. The ceremony shouldn't take more than 5 minutes total.It's nothing but a distraction if it goes longer.

3. Agree. I think it's more he's beat down from a long season than that he's quit though.

4. I didn't even watch Saturday's game so I can't comment.

5. Agree.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...effort against Auburn after dominating SC? I don't know how to explain it. It should not have even been acknowledged. We shouldn't be talking about "4 championships in 4 years." Look at Cal. He is making statements saying that the SEC championship pales in comparison than NCAA seeding. Yet we print up t-shirts and celebrate the big "championship." For some reason, in the most important game of the year, we played with zero effort int he first half.

 

[DerHntr]

i think you may have a point, somewhat. one of our goals was reached and on the surface it looked like we as a team were satisfied. but you could also argue that we played well at auburn but lost in a game where they played lights out and that we got beat by a better TN team while being distracted from the senior day activities (which you already pointed out).

any way you look at it, no matter the reason for the way we played, we don't deserve to get in the tournament.

 

[Goat Redux]

It's obvious we're just not an NCAA tournament caliber team. I've said this over and over. Our talent doesn't stack up with the legit teams. I'm not hollering to fire Stans, but his team just didn't have it this year. It's a testament to him that we got in last year with a good SEC run.

 

[patdog]

nm

 

[DowntownDawg]

....they shot 70% on us in the first half, and many were wide open looks. We played hard and played them even in the second half. It was a very poor effort in the first half. I just don't look at it as we played well. Had we played well, it would've gone down to the wire and we probably win. Again, we spotted them a lead because we weren't mentally in the game for the first 20 minutes.

Same thing happened Saturday.

I wouldn't have near as much of a problem with if we played our guts out both nights and got beat. But we were not mentally prepared for the two biggest games of the year. That's inexcusable.

 

[FireRicky]

Sorry but I can't buy that "we never were good" excuse. This team returned essentially 6 starters including 2 senior 3 year starters. They've been in the top 5 in the nation all year long in blocked shots and FG% defense. Basically after a 2nd half struggle, Ravern is STILL the SECs second leading 3 point % shooter and in the top 25 in the nation. The only Stansbury statistical category they struggle in is rebounding due o the fact that there is no offensive discipline. And, after all is said and done, they play in a VERY weak SEC. There is NO excuse or the results they put up this season.

Hell, look at the UT game as an example. After bein in that huge deficit, we closed the gap to 6. UT came down and missed a shot. We rebounded the ball, fired the ball up court to Barry and he took one dribble and fired up a 3 while we still had 2 players in the backcourt and pretty sure it was Kodi and Jarvis. Next possession Kodi threw up a wild 3 and we never got close again.

With all the shooters and players who think they are shooters, nobody expected this team to be a half court team. But ****, run some sets and eliminate 5-10 of the errant 3s that were taken and this team
could have improved. The sad part? This team, statistically, was one of Stansbury's BEST at not turning the ball over. 13 turnovers per game.

Keep spinning!!

 

[futaba.79]

with a chance to be down three.

None of that **** you posted happened.

edit: here's the link. http://www.mstateathletics.com/fls/16800/stats/mbk/200910/ms0306.htm?DB_OEM_ID=16800

 

[DowntownDawg]

[No message]

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[futaba.79]

down 9 on a layup by Osby, back to 11 on a Prince layup. Missed 3 by Turner, dunk by UT, missed 3 by Bost, rebound to Osby, missed layup by Osby and then UT continues their run.

Ifhe's going to use the play by play to make his point, then the guy needs to get it right. </p>

 

[Todd4State]

based on what you just typed about Senior Day, we basically should have at least warmed up before we took the floor. Either that or not allowed UT to warm up, which I don't know if that's something that we could prevent. So, let's just both warm-up before the game.

I could definately see that affecting us very early in the game- if we were indeed just standing around for a long period of time while the other team is active.

This isn't a spin, but after we got down by 17, didn't we end up actually outscoring them by one point after that? My point is that maybe not warming up and standing around could have possibly killed us. I'm not saying that we would have for sure won had we warmed up, but it seems a lot more likely that we could have kept it closer had we done so.

And if that is the case, you definately have to blame the entire coaching staff because someone should have said, hey- Rick. We've been standing around for about 10 minutes, and maybe we should warm-up a little bit.

At least that seems to be the most egregious thing on the list.

 

[majors42]

its not kirby or phil's fault that stans won't listen. Phil knows basketball and has given stans suggestions that have gone in one ear and out the other. you don't cut the tail of rattlesnake to kill him.

 

[Todd4State]

Would Stansbury listen to him? I'm asking because I really don't know. Stansbury not listening to him might be one reason why he only stayed a year.

 

[OtisCole]

The same as football we had a senior day before the Egg Bowl and then we came out flat and ... oh yeah never mind. I bet if you could find it, we always loose our senior night bball game. Way too distracting.

 

[Johnson85]

It's obvious we're just not an NCAA tournament caliber team. I've said this over and over. Our talent doesn't stack up with the legit teams. I'm not hollering to fire Stans, but his team just didn't have it this year. It's a testament to him that we got in last year with a good SEC run.

Our problem is not that we don't have NCAA caliber talent (we may not, but we didn't need it to get in the dance this year). Our problemis that we're underachieving. Whatever the reason, Stansbury has done a poor job this year.

Some of it can be explained away (losing Bailey and to a lesser extent Beckham hurt, but the reality isStans didn't do a good job coming up with alternatives and really usingRandy as the back up point was probablyalways the option we should have gone with) but for the most partStans needs to be looking in the mirror tofigure out how this season ended up in the *******.Limit the choke jobs and beatup on a ****** SEC conference, and we're in the tournament without beating agood team all year.We did neither and whether you think Stansbury is the best we can do, that the underachieving this season was an aberration, or that it really mostly wasn't Stansbury's fault, the fact is that Stansbury and the team laid a huge turd on the fans this season.

 

[patdog]

Would Stansbury listen to him? I'm asking because I really don't know. Stansbury not listening to him might be one reason why he only stayed a year.

You're not the first one that's posted this recently. The Stan Jones deal was understood from the beginning that it was only going to be a one year deal. Leonard Hamilton had been fired from his NBA job and was taking a year off before getting back into coaching.We hired Jones for that one year. But everybody knew from the beginning that he was going tofollow Hamilton to whatever new job hewound uptaking.

 

[majors42]

I don't know the whole story on that. Does anybody know how many assistants that Stans has had that have gone on to bigger programs. Carter is a high school coach doing well. Who else is there? Kirby has been trying to get a head job for years. My point is, being an assistant under Stans doesn't seem to be a great way to move up in the coaching world. Maybe Stan Jones realized that and got the hell out of town while he could. I think that says alot about Stans' rep as coach in the coaching community.

 

[DowntownDawg]

You'd think we'd learn.

 

[Chuck Smooth]

"On Stewart and Varnado’s senior night: 'Right now, they can’t see it, but that’s OK. They’re still champs.'"

This quote alone tells me that Stans' status quo is winning the SEC west... his wording of "champs" could have been replaced with something like "great athletes" or something similar. But champs?? This season has been a let down and mediocrity is not an option going forward

 

[paindonthurt_]

Are we better than 21 and 10?

 

[Optimus Prime 4]

[No message]

 

[fishwater99]

The same as football we had a senior day before the Egg Bowl and then we came out flat and ... oh yeah never mind. I bet if you could find it, we always loose our senior night bball game. Way too distracting.

Did they warm up right before thegame?

 

[Goat Redux]

Rider took it to us, we didn't just slip up. Alabama and Auburn did too. We didn't beat anybody any good. We were consistent in the way we went along. Of course, you're going to get some games where you come out charged up (Kentucky) and others where you're flat. That's EVERY team, not just ours. And we finished the same way. On your bad days you still have to beat the inferior teams. We didn't do that week in week out. We lost on the road to some lower teams than us, that's what happens.

 

[Goat Redux]

we weren't on the bubble last year really, until we ran through the tournament. Then we got crushed by Washington, and it was obvious we didn't belong. So given some hopeful improvement and maturity over the course of the year, I hoped we'd be in a position to get an at-large bid.

But I never expected to cakewalk into the tournament, no. I've always had concerns about the talent and lack of size on our team.

 

[DowntownDawg]

...but the problem with that is that it is just as much of an indictment of Stansbury as the "we way underachieved" argument.

If we're just not good, he's done a poor job of recruiting. If we underachieved, he's done a poor job in coaching.

Either way you get to the same conclusion. Something has to be shaken up in the program.

 

[Goat Redux]

hasn't delivered. We don't have a Mario Austin or a Lawrence Roberts. Varnado is good, but not a huge difference maker. Renardo Sidney IS that guy, maybe better than the aforementioned.

The problem with shaking things us is that Rick created this situation with the peak and valley seasons he's had. He's too good to get rid of, but at the same time, if you're not going forward you're going backwards - thus the good one minute, bad the next type play we have gotten that subsequently pisses fanbases off. Ask Houston Nutt.

I'm willing to give him a breather because one, we do have talent coming in, two we've got a new practice facility partly because of him, and D.He's got a chance to get some big time talent in 2011. And Stans can win with talent. The bad luck in tournament play (NCAA) is just that - bad luck. Everybody knows we had a stud team in 2004 except for Coach34.

Now don't get me wrong, I think Stans is a "good" recruiter. But good recruiters will get you good teams. And let's face it, that's where we're at. We have a good team to even be on the bubble consistently.

 

[fishwater99]

Standsbury waits until we are down by 9 at the 16 min mark to even call a timeout. You have to call it quicker than that, was he not even watching how his guys weren't playing. Then he waits until we are down 17-0 to call another timeout. This has always just driven me crazy.

 

[Germans.sixpack]

Of our losses, we could have/should have beaten Richmond, WKU, ARK and KY. That's 25-6 coming off a baffling 2 game losing straek & being pissed that if we lose the first game of the SECT, we'll "only" be a 10 or 11 seed.</p>

 

[Johnson85]

Rider took it to us, we didn't just slip up. Alabama and Auburn did too. We didn't beat anybody any good. We were consistent in the way we went along. Of course, you're going to get some games where you come out charged up (Kentucky) and others where you're flat. That's EVERY team, not just ours. And we finished the same way. On your bad days you still have to beat the inferior teams. We didn't do that week in week out. We lost on the road to some lower teams than us, that's what happens.

they're just what their record says they are. Clearly, we're not a good team. But the question is why. This team doesn't have dominating talent, but it does have all the pieces needed to be good and a good coach would have this team safely in the tournament by now. The reasons we aren't:</p>
[list type=decimal]
[*]We don't have an offense that lets Dee create or that create shots for our best shooter(s).
[*]We don't have an offensive player that can demand a double team.
[*]We don't have depth.
[*]Ravern doesn't care to play defense.
[*]Kodi wants to hang out on the perimeter and is generally a basket case[/list]

Two and Three are not really a result of Stansbury's coaching, although Stansbury could have done a much better job compensating for the lack of depth. Four you have to lay partly at Stansbury's feet. Some players can't be reached, but I don't think Ravern is one of them. Five I'm inclined to give a pass on; I don't think Kodi is rational and think trying to get him to play the right way woudl have resulted in acting out in a way that required him being kicked off the team.

The big problem is one. A decent x's and o's coach could build an offense around the players we have.Unfortunately, for all the good things Stansbury can do, that's not one of them, so we end up with a ****** season. But just saying we were a bad team and acting like we didn't have the personnel is ********.</p>

 

[fishwater99]

Rider took it to us, we didn't just slip up. Alabama and Auburn did too. We didn't beat anybody any good. We were consistent in the way we went along. Of course, you're going to get some games where you come out charged up (Kentucky) and others where you're flat. That's EVERY team, not just ours. And we finished the same way. On your bad days you still have to beat the inferior teams. We didn't do that week in week out. We lost on the road to some lower teams than us, that's what happens.

they're just what their record says they are. Clearly, we're not a good team. But the question is why. This team doesn't have dominating talent, but it does have all the pieces needed to be good and a good coach would have this team safely in the tournament by now. The reasons we aren't:</p>
[list type=decimal]
[*]We don't have an offense that lets Dee create or that create shots for our best shooter(s).
[*]We don't have an offensive player that can demand a double team.
[*]We don't have depth.
[*]Ravern doesn't care to play defense.
[*]Kodi wants to hang out on the perimeter and is generally a basket case[/list]

Two and Three are not really a result of Stansbury's coaching, although Stansbury could have done a much better job compensating for the lack of depth. Four you have to lay partly at Stansbury's feet. Some players can't be reached, but I don't think Ravern is one of them. Five I'm inclined to give a pass on; I don't think Kodi is rational and think trying to get him to play the right way woudl have resulted in acting out in a way that required him being kicked off the team.

The big problem is one. A decent x's and o's coach could build an offense around the players we have.Unfortunately, for all the good things Stansbury can do, that's not one of them, so we end up with a ****** season. But just saying we were a bad team and acting like we didn't have the personnel is ********.</p>