Ok, can we talk about last night?

[Seinfeld]

We won the game which is ultimately all that matters today, but holy mother of pearl.... I’m a reasonably calm guy, and I was about ready to put my fist through drywall

A few things that stood out to me.

1. Love Ado’s effort, but he is only a good defender when going up against similar athletes. When he finds himself trying to defend more of a finesse or Euro style big, he’s unfortunately atrocious

2. Our upperclassmen guards, my gosh. Absolutely no poise for the bulk of the game, and Carter continues to have games where he can’t toss a pebble into the ocean. You cannot have 5 turnovers from a guy that’s not even your primary ball handler nor can you be fouling guys 30 ft from the basket with under a minute to go. Then there’s Nick who deserves to a of credit for doing a lot down the stretch, but I swear... the guy makes an amazing play one possession, yet seems to always follow it up with a needless, out of control bad one. We’ve GOT to get more consistency from those guys or else make a change.

3. Perry - Just an awful game, But 7 TOs, really? As talented as he is, he makes some of the worst in game decisions, and he has a bad tendency for downward spirals as soon as something goes wrong. He can’t play like he did last night again, period.

4. Officiating - ok, we played terribly down the stretch, and much of what happened last night was on us. However, the zebras were dead set on sending SC to the line on basically every possession in the final 3 minutes, and there were at least 3 fouls called that just weren’t fouls. The Ado screen was probably the worst.

 

[Shmuley]

mentally weak. period.

 

[hailstate19]

Naw if they were mentally weak they would have folded after the 0-3 start. People toss that wording around way too much. They don’t make great decisions at times, but it’s not mentally weak.

 

[dawgstudent]

I thought Ado played Kotsar pretty well. Perry was getting manhandled by Kotsar when we were on offense. If someone bodies up Perry, he is done. He relies on being able to be more physical than the opponent and he wasn't going to do that with Kotsar. And his jumper is not consistent enough to be a weapon which is why I am shocked that he considered to be such a high pick.

Carter is the worst 3 point shooter that is known as a 3 point shooter. He is averaging 25% in SEC games from 3.

I tweeted last night it took 17 minutes to play the final 59 seconds of the game. That is ridiculous.

 

[FlotownDawg]

I felt we were in pretty good control of the game until the last minute when we absolutely fell apart. Perry had a terrible game but we still won despite that, which speaks well of the rest of our guys. We HAVE to get better at handling a press late in games. Not being able to handle the ball against the press late in the game cost us the LSU game and nearly cost us last night. Thank God we had a big enough lead with a minute to go to where it didn’t cost us the game. Winning is all that matters, whether by one point or 50. A lot of people were saying we would collapse and lose most (or all) the rest of our games after the Ole Miss loss, but we’ve bounced back nicely with two wins. Saturday’s game is another must not lose game against a Texas A&M team that is playing much better and won at Alabama last night.

 

[ronpolk]

We won the game which is ultimately all that matters today, but holy mother of pearl.... I’m a reasonably calm guy, and I was about ready to put my fist through drywall

A few things that stood out to me.

1. Love Ado’s effort, but he is only a good defender when going up against similar athletes. When he finds himself trying to defend more of a finesse or Euro style big, he’s unfortunately atrocious

2. Our upperclassmen guards, my gosh. Absolutely no poise for the bulk of the game, and Carter continues to have games where he can’t toss a pebble into the ocean. You cannot have 5 turnovers from a guy that’s not even your primary ball handler nor can you be fouling guys 30 ft from the basket with under a minute to go. Then there’s Nick who deserves to a of credit for doing a lot down the stretch, but I swear... the guy makes an amazing play one possession, yet seems to always follow it up with a needless, out of control bad one. We’ve GOT to get more consistency from those guys or else make a change.

3. Perry - Just an awful game, But 7 TOs, really? As talented as he is, he makes some of the worst in game decisions, and he has a bad tendency for downward spirals as soon as something goes wrong. He can’t play like he did last night again, period.

4. Officiating - ok, we played terribly down the stretch, and much of what happened last night was on us. However, the zebras were dead set on sending SC to the line on basically every possession in the final 3 minutes, and there were at least 3 fouls called that just weren’t fouls. The Ado screen was probably the worst.

So, you’re telling me Ado can’t guard people are better athletes than him? Who knew**

 

[Seinfeld]

That’s about all I can come up with to describe the last 3 minutes as well. Aside from Nick making a few plays and FTs for us, everything else was an unmitigated disaster. Just carelessness, poor judgment, and lack of poise. We just can’t have that from Perry and our upperclassmen guards

 

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

Ado had his best game of the season last night. He was not primarily guarding Kotsar-Perry was.

We played pretty sluggish last night, and you are right about Perry. He had his worst game since SEC play started, but still managed to scratch out a double double. We kept acting like we were eventually going to pull away, but just letting them back in it once we went up by 10 or so.

The refs were awful. Tyson got absolutely mugged right before the half and the refs swallowed the whistle. Also, when Perry lost the ball on the press near the end of the game, I literally heard the slap of his hand from my seat. If the ref has the ability to look at the reply and reverse possession, he should have the ability to call a foul retroactively. Replay is a scourge on college basketball.

Not the prettiest, but a win is a win. We are still in tournament contention and need every win down the stretch, I would encourage our fans to come out and support the team, but what's the point? I am sure Ole Miss will be relatively crowded the last weekend of the regular season though.

 

[Dawg1976]

I can't watch them. Too frustrating.

 

[Seinfeld]

Carter is such an enigma to me. He has one of the purest shots I’ve ever seen that only drops around 25% of the time

 

[VegasDawg13]

You're way off on Ado. Our defense completely capitulates when he sits. His off-ball defense matters as much as his one-on-one defense. So even if you're right that he struggles to man-up certain players (which I don't think you are anyway), that still doesn't tell the whole story.

 

[Nunya.sixpack]

That last minute is how a team ends up losing in the first weekend of march madness. We've been doing that for 23 years now.

 

[11thEagleFan]

The title of this thread gave me anxiety. Getting this text is every man’s nightmare.

 

[hailstate19]

I thought Ado played Kotsar pretty well. Perry was getting manhandled by Kotsar when we were on offense. If someone bodies up Perry, he is done. He relies on being able to be more physical than the opponent and he wasn't going to do that with Kotsar. And his jumper is not consistent enough to be a weapon which is why I am shocked that he considered to be such a high pick.

Carter is the worst 3 point shooter that is known as a 3 point shooter. He is averaging 25% in SEC games from 3.

I tweeted last night it took 17 minutes to play the final 59 seconds of the game. That is ridiculous.

Carter has been streaky as hell his entire career. He is as cold as he’s ever been right now and hopefully that changes soon. One thing I’ll have to say is that he’s done a decent job at getting to the basket and finishing lately. He knows his shot hasn’t been great, but he’s done a good job of making plays in a different ways.

 

[hailstate19]

That last minute is how a team ends up losing in the first weekend of march madness. We've been doing that for 23 years now.

Here comes the “we don’t have to worry about that because this team ain’t even making the NIT” comment.

 

[dawgstudent]

I agree there. He is pretty strong penetrating the lane and finishing.

 

[dawgstudent]

Did we watch the same game? I thought when Ado was in the game, he was guarding Kotsar. Kotsar was guarding Perry on every offensive possession though.

 

[DAWG61]

I can't watch them. Too frustrating.

That's ok there's plenty of film from the olden days when we were Kansas you can watch.

 

[seshomoru]

I thought Ado played Kotsar pretty well. Perry was getting manhandled by Kotsar when we were on offense. If someone bodies up Perry, he is done. He relies on being able to be more physical than the opponent and he wasn't going to do that with Kotsar. And his jumper is not consistent enough to be a weapon which is why I am shocked that he considered to be such a high pick.

Carter is the worst 3 point shooter that is known as a 3 point shooter. He is averaging 25% in SEC games from 3.

I tweeted last night it took 17 minutes to play the final 59 seconds of the game. That is ridiculous.

I thought Ado played him pretty well to, and Carter missed two wide open threes late in the game that would have buried them. Thank god for DJ Stewart.

 

[coach66]

The officiating was bad at the end of the game but we simply turn it over

way too much. If we can address the turnovers we would be a lot better team.

 

[msstate7]

way too much. If we can address the turnovers we would be a lot better team.

We certainly are TO happy at times, but SC forces a ton. Opponents TO totals last 4 games for SC: 20, 19, 20, 22... that's what they do

 

[maroonmania]

I turned it over with about 5 minutes to go which is about all I can handle (guess I'm getting too old to live with the emotional roller coaster of these basketball games for 2 full halves). Anyway, those last 5 minutes on the clock seemed to take at least 30 to 40 minutes to playout and I was miserable watching it the entire time. I mean we can't inbound the ball, we can't seem to defend anything without getting a foul called on us so we were letting them continue to score with no time coming off, and we also mixed in other various turnovers (walking, stepping out of bounds, etc.). And that doesn't even start to mention the horrible officiating with multiple overturned calls in SC's direction. The only real positive that saved the day for us in the end was that when we actually did hold the ball long enough for them to intentionally put us at the free throw line, we did make most of our free throws. Very glad we won but boy was that painful. Can't imagine how bad it would have been had we actually blown the game.

 

[57stratdawg]

The guard play on this team is why they seem so inconsistent. We all know about the turnovers, but sometimes they don’t defend very well either.

Of our remaining games, the matchup with OM in Starkville scares me. I’m not sure we can consistently get enough stops against their guys.

 

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

I mean I was there, and remember multiple times when Kotsar scored on Perry. He cut across the lane twice and faked a sort of baby runner with his left hand, and then pivoted and scored with his right. Both of those occurrences were with Perry guarding him. Maybe I am thinking about isolated possessions, but it seemed like Perry was Kotsar's primary defender.

 

[dawgstudent]

When Ado sat - Perry guarded him. Ado played 35 minutes though.

 

[hailstate19]

Carter is such an enigma to me. He has one of the purest shots I’ve ever seen that only drops around 25% of the time

Late in the second half we could have gone up 14 I think. We broke down the defense and Carter had a wide open look. The 5 people at the hump were ready to explode. Then brick! I mean it’s not lack of effort, it’s not a bad decision, it’s just as simple as shots are not falling for Tyson. Eventually, I imagine those will start falling again at some point hopefully. Tyson actually was shooting really well the first two or so games of the season If I remember correctly. He’s been pretty cold ever since tho.

I do like that this team understands their identity. They really don’t settle for a bunch of 3s like previous Howland teams. Really do wish we had another pure shooter tho. Q is very missed.

 

[NWADog]

I wouldn’t say it’s mental weakness either by our guys. More of a tendency to exhale or lose focus. It’s like we get a few big dunks, things click for a few minutes and we build a lead and we remember how talented we are (we have more talent then nearly every team in the conference and I’m not being a homer when I say this) and then we just think we’re gonna cruise and just lose the edge. I hate to say it... but we lose our STRAIN. We exhale and lose focus way too much and that keeps leading to these lulls in our play.

When we lose focus and exhale and the other team makes a run to take a lead or make it close we all tend to press and compound the issue and get wild with our passing and shot selection.

The start of the second half we had a few of the worst offensive possessions I think I’ve seen us have all year. Just a lot of standing and dribbling with no movement, passing or screening at all and a settle for a jump shot. Maddening.

At the end of the day we’re 8-2 in our last 10 conference games, we’re extremely talented. We should be a tournament team. Hope our guys find that killer instinct in this final stretch because this could be a very fun end to a season.

 

[maroonmania]

way too much. If we can address the turnovers we would be a lot better team.

Could we possibly address being able to inbound the ball without losing possession? Of all the issues at the end of the game last night, that was the biggest one.

 

[T-TownDawgg]

I'd amend this to "mentally unstable". They have indeed shown some toughness in some instances and completely drooled themselves in many others.

 

[maroonmania]

That's ok there's plenty of film from the olden days when we were Kansas you can watch.

Just put on film of the 2004 team. A 25-2 (in the regular season) SEC championship basketball team should cheer any MSU fan up.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Kostar did most of his scoring when Perry had him. If Ado had not guarded him at all he would have scored over 30.

Perry could not handle Kostar when he had the ball either. When he couldn't overpower him and started turning it over he let his frustration take him straight out of the game.

 

[hatfieldms]

Just put on film of the 2004 team. A 25-2 (in the regular season) SEC championship basketball team should cheer any MSU fan up.

So any team that doesn’t match that 1 team in history just cannot be watched? Got it

 

[lanceharbor7]

Carter was a disaster all game last night. I didn't see him finish well. I just saw terrible decision after terrible decision from a senior. Watched him dribble around for 25 seconds and then launch 24 footers....WTF.

I agree there. He is pretty strong penetrating the lane and finishing.

 

[TheStateUofMS]

I started paying closer attention at the 12min mark. My bad.

 

[jdbulldog]

You might want to get a little scared about A&M first.

The guard play on this team is why they seem so inconsistent. We all know about the turnovers, but sometimes they don’t defend very well either.

Of our remaining games, the matchup with OM in Starkville scares me. I’m not sure we can consistently get enough stops against their guys.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

Perry's Dad was there. Never good.

 

[DAWG61]

Just put on film of the 2004 team. A 25-2 (in the regular season) SEC championship basketball team should cheer any MSU fan up.

Oh my bad I said Kansas I meant Tennessee football. At least they won a NC though while we lost in the 2nd round of our magical year we hold every team hence forth to the same standard of despite showing zero support for ever.