Whenever Howland

[expireddog]

Decides to hang it up.... we could do a lot worse than Steve Forbes at ETSU.

 

[wtw2400]

We're not going to find a better recruiter or a guy that stabilizes the program like him at this point. The hatred of him is so 17ing weird.

In the past 4 years we have gone from 12th to 7th to 6th to 4th in the SEC and will be at our 3rd straight Tournament. And a good chance it's a 2nd straight NCAA

Essienatially where Stansbury had us.

I think any MSU fan who actually cares knows that this scenario is much better than the Rick Ray last place scenario we'd put us in for doing something stupid like that.

 

[expireddog]

I’m thankful for howland bringing us out of the dumpster fire Ray put us in.

Not ready for howland to go and don’t hate him. However IF we don’t make the dance this year and miss again next. He’ll only have one trip in 6 years. We can find someone to do better.

 

[hatfieldms]

Yeah we said that when we ran Stansbury off as well.

And I was all for Stansbury leaving at the time

 

[DAWG61]

Damn let the season play out before you go expiring him again.

 

[RiverCityDawg]

The man just said "whenever he decides to hang it up" and some of you are acting like he's banging on his door at midnight with a pitchfork in hand. Sensitive bunch around here.

 

[Nunya.sixpack]

"whenever he decides to hang it up" is a euphemism for "when we burn his house to the ground and kick his dog"

 

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

I saw some SEC attendance numbers yesterday and MSU was dead last on average attendance. Despite having no one show up at home games state went 14-2 in the Hump. There are a lot of teams that would kill to have Howland. We take the guy for granted.

 

[aTotal360]

DEAD last in quality of fans for sure.

 

[DAWG61]

Imagine if our athletic department valued loyal fans that show up more than just selling season tickets to donors that never attend.

 

[VegasDawg13]

We're not going to find a better recruiter or a guy that stabilizes the program like him at this point. The hatred of him is so 17ing weird.

In the past 4 years we have gone from 12th to 7th to 6th to 4th in the SEC and will be at our 3rd straight Tournament. And a good chance it's a 2nd straight NCAA

Essienatially where Stansbury had us.

I think any MSU fan who actually cares knows that this scenario is much better than the Rick Ray last place scenario we'd put us in for doing something stupid like that.

I disagree that there's a "good chance" of making the NCAAT. I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm right, then he absolutely has not matched Stansbury.

Stansbury never had a single 5 year stretch in which we only played in 1 NCAAT game. In fact, 3 is the worst he ever did.

I don't think we should fire Howland no matter what the outcome of this season is, but why his defenders feel the need to minimize what Stansbury did here is beyond me.

 

[aTotal360]

Fair enough, but we can't ***** about wanting nice things if we don't kiss the ring of corporate America. I know it's a chicken/egg discussion, but it's the truth. Lower bowl tickets are impossible to get. Corporations buy them in bulk and rarely use them. It sucks. With that being said, there is definitely some reseating that should take place to improve things.

 

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

Imagine if our athletic department valued loyal fans that show up more than just selling season tickets to donors that never attend.

Imagine fans that aren't so spiteful that they will not totally stop supporting a team because the athletic department took away tickets that they have been underpaying for for 30 years.

God forbid someone has to sit behind one of the goals or in the upper deck. The Hump in reality doesn't have many bad seats.

 

[MSU601Dawg]

We're not going to find a better recruiter or a guy that stabilizes the program like him at this point. The hatred of him is so 17ing weird.

In the past 4 years we have gone from 12th to 7th to 6th to 4th in the SEC and will be at our 3rd straight Tournament. And a good chance it's a 2nd straight NCAA

Essienatially where Stansbury had us.

I think any MSU fan who actually cares knows that this scenario is much better than the Rick Ray last place scenario we'd put us in for doing something stupid like that.

Completely agree, except for the statement of "essentially where Stansbury had us" being perceived around here as a good thing.

I've been around a LONG time, and I think Stansbury was the most ridiculed coach we've ever had in any sport on here. He was made to be an idiot and the narrative was that ANYONE could do better. This board was basically a super PAC campaign to get him fired.

As time has passed you would think people would come around to the idea that maybe the job Stans did wasn't so bad, but no one is willing to admit they were wrong.

IMO Howland is the best on paper hire MSU has ever made in any sport, he's won like 8 conference titles at 3 different places and ascended EVERY program he's been. Improved MSU EVERY year. He's been fantastic for the program IMO, but he still will likely never match Stans. But Stans is the village idiot

 

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

Completely agree, except for the statement of "essentially where Stansbury had us" being perceived around here as a good thing.

I've been around a LONG time, and I think Stansbury was the most ridiculed coach we've ever had in any sport on here. He was made to be an idiot and the narrative was that ANYONE could do better. This board was basically a super PAC campaign to get him fired.

As time has passed you would think people would come around to the idea that maybe the job Stans did wasn't so bad, but no one is willing to admit they were wrong.

IMO Howland is the best on paper hire MSU has ever made in any sport, he's won like 8 conference titles at 3 different places and ascended EVERY program he's been. Improved MSU EVERY year. He's been fantastic for the program IMO, but he still will likely never match Stans. But Stans is the village idiot

Stans time at State is a "Tale of two halves" to use a sports term. In his first few years he was dynamite. 2001-2004 was the best run in modern MSU basketball history. I legitimately thought State had a chance to win the tournament in 2003-2004 which is a feeling that I had never had before (even in 1996).

After that stretch, the decline definitely started. Personally, I think Stans began losing control of the program with Jamont. Jamont was a great player, but he just ran rough shot over any authority that Stans tried to display. Other players followed that tone in the future: Ravern, Bost, Moultrie, Sidney (I heard horror stories about him).

It was time when he left. The fight in Hawaii was nationally embarrassing and just an outward of sign what was happening internally. No control and no respect for the program or the head coach.

Our fanbase has a really hard time separating the 2 time periods. Stans was great for a while, and I still have a lot of admiration for him, but his time needed to end here when it did. No hard feelings from me, and I don't take his time here for granted. It almost feels like to me that our fans feel like they have to choose between Howland and Stansbury. They are both great. Howland hasn't reached the height of Stans success, but what he has done here is impressive. 5 years ago we were one of the worst teams in America, and now we have a double bye, and are fighting to get in the tournament once again.

 

[Nunya.sixpack]

Is Dale's really buying that many of our tix?

 

[thf24]

I disagree that there's a "good chance" of making the NCAAT. I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm right, then he absolutely has not matched Stansbury.

Stansbury never had a single 5 year stretch in which we only played in 1 NCAAT game. In fact, 3 is the worst he ever did.

I don't think we should fire Howland no matter what the outcome of this season is, but why his defenders feel the need to minimize what Stansbury did here is beyond me.

Comparing tournament appearances between the two isn't a good measurement since the distance your resume gets you in any given year is so inconsistent. I can't think of many years in the 00's in which a 20 win regular season with an 11-7 conference record wouldn't have had us comfortably in. Instead, compare Howland's winning percentages over the past three years to any three consecutive years under Stansbury... you might be surprised.

Also, it's not all that fair to compare the first five years of Howland's tenure to any five of Stansbury's considering the state of the program Howland inherited.

All that said, I'm not for pitting them against each other at all, positively or negatively. Both have done a pretty good job for us compared to most of our basketball history.

 

[DAWG61]

I'm not one of those spiteful fans not supporting this team. I am however sticking up for all the fans that used to regularly attend that the athletic department decided weren't as important as the empty seats they sell as season tickets for the lower half right now. MSU fans haven't been underpaying for tickets for 30 years either. Tennessee sells season tickets for $99 and with that comes a guaranteed seat of your choosing for every single home game. Are MSU's season tickets only $99?? What's Tennessee's average attendance compared to ours? Maybe just maybe our athletic department should join 2020 thinking in selling tickets already.

 

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

I'm not one of those spiteful fans not supporting this team. I am however sticking up for all the fans that used to regularly attend that the athletic department decided weren't as important as the empty seats they sell as season tickets for the lower half right now. MSU fans haven't been underpaying for tickets for 30 years either. Tennessee sells season tickets for $99 and with that comes a guaranteed seat of your choosing for every single home game. Are MSU's season tickets only $99?? What's Tennessee's average attendance compared to ours? Maybe just maybe our athletic department should join 2020 thinking in selling tickets already.

Tennessee's average attendance is 3 times ours according to the numbers Matt Wyatt put out yesterday.

So you are saying UT charges 99 for season tickets for all fans, and they can choose to sit where ever they want? I don't buy it.

Side note: There is absolutely no way we averaged over six thousand at each home game.

 

[mstateglfr]

Vandy averaged over 9000 fans and played 20 games at home?!

- that is some real dedication to a really bad team.
- that's a lot of home games to have such a bad record.

 

[DAWG61]

There's limitations to what seat they can pick based on availability but they always have a guaranteed seat. You can pay for better seats as well but if you don't claim them a couple days before the game they open up for the $99 holders to choose from. So a lower attended game will have primo seats available. Probably helps UT have 3x our attendance on average when you aren't forced to look at rows and rows of empty seats you aren't allowed to sit in. You know basic common sense ****.

 

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

There's limitations to what seat they can pick based on availability but they always have a guaranteed seat. You can pay for better seats as well but if you don't claim them a couple days before the game they open up for the $99 holders to choose from. So a lower attended game will have primo seats available. Probably helps UT have 3x our attendance on average when you aren't forced to look at rows and rows of empty seats you aren't allowed to sit in. You know basic common sense ****.

It helps more that their fans actually like basketball.

You couldn't hand out cash and fill up our arena for a weeknight December game.

 

[Lettucexxxx]

It helps more that their fans actually like basketball.

You couldn't hand out cash and fill up our arena for a weeknight December game.

By all means, I would undoubtedly be ecstatic and ready to vote Ben Howland into the GOAT MSU coaches...if he’s able to get to the tournament and make a final 4 run.

But I’m afraid we made our bed when we decided to start out super lazy at the beginning of conference play.....and not winning at S.C. at the end of the year showed just how good we are........we really 17ing needed that game, but was out coached and outplayed...hustled, sense of urgency...whichever one of those you prefer.

So who’s fault is it if we don’t make the tournament this year? After all, is that not what every SEC school strives for?

The players?
The coaches?
The Fans?
Who shoulders the blame of wasting a year with 2NBA HIGH DRAFT PICKs? I’m not sure what’s harder to do. Losing 7 SEC games in a ****** conference with two NBA players on the floor...or losing 5 games in football two seasons ago with an entire NFL ready defense....I guess they did their Job...leading the country in total Defense, so...

losing a chance to Dance, with the overall 23rd and 42nd picks on your college team, has to be worse, right?

BTW, our home schedule was really set up nicely.

This team just pissed me off awhile back and I’m ready for the season to be over.

Things I’ll continue to dislike about our basketball team until it gets fixed: we don’t play until we have to.....We played down to our opponents all year......still no offense sets, no cutting, no extra pass.........we are who we are. The 70th best team in the country......and that’s putting it mildly.

My expectations for this season were not met. Y’all can high horse this to death but in the end, Ben Howland would agree...and he is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ of basketball.