A little basketball perspective (long)

[Go Budaw]

3 years ago, everyone was super pumped about the Howland era. His first year was known ahead of time to be a bit of a longshot to do anything meaningful. Year 2 was the first year of a full Howland recruiting class, and year 3 (this year) was supposed to be where we really took off with every member of the most highly rated recruiting class we ever signed coming into their Soph seasons.

3 years ago, everyone talked about how it wouldn’t even be fair that we’d have some combination of all 4/5 star guys in Newman, Keglar, Q, Peters, Herard, and Holman on the court at the same time with the strong possibility of also having Garrison Brooks and little Spoon off the bench along with Ado to be an enforcer down low.

Flash forward to now, and over 50% of that projected lineup has vaporized into thin air. Malik, Keglar, and Herard are all gone and really weren’t that good in the first place. Brooks never showed up. Peters, I won’t mince any words on him. His ability was vastly overrated and is attitude and effort are both pure trash. Today’s game we were trailing by a couple of possessions in the waning minutes and absolutely had to get a stop, he loses his man and gives up an uncontested layup without even making Harper earn it from the line after rotating back over. No effort, and he tops it off by whining at a teammate for not rotating over to cover his mistake when he was able to still get back in position before stopping short on challenging his man. Then next possession he gets his pocket picked and commits a frustration foul as his 5th personal. Its been well advertised all season on here and elsewhere how big of a cancer he’s been, and I think nothing sums it up better than that sequence of events. And dude is only averaging 7 ppg to boot. Based on him getting in Howland’s doghouse and all that early in the year and all we’ve seen on the court, I don’t expect him back next year. And quite frankly, I’ll be disappointed if he does return.

So, take away those FIVE guys who we all thought 3 years ago would be elite contributors and none of them are. What are we left with? Not all that much. The Spoons are obviously our nucleus. Great players on both ends who can really make us a tough out when they are on from the perimeter. A couple of gradually improving project guys in Holman and Ado who have both not been liabilities for the most part. Stapleton who is a limited talent but max effort glue guy. Then finally Carter off the bench who has been a good spot shooter when he’s had opportunities. So, we basically have 2 guys on the whole roster that our opponents have to actually game plan around, both are perimeter guys, and everyone else is young. There just isn’t enough talent or experience on this squad right now.

All that being said, it is clear at least in my eyes that this team is still better than last year, and that team was also better than the one before it. Howland has gotten us to buy in on the defensive end and I think we still have a decent shot at the NIT. The actual floor coaching hasn’t been the main issue with this group, although it hasn’t been perfect. Next year, we add Perry, get another year of development from Ado / Holman, and hopefully bring everyone back besides Peters. Next year’s team will be the true litmus test for Howland going forward. People need to give him that opportunity.

 

[missouridawg]

Another thing that people are fogettting.... is that Howland is going to coach a defense first team. I want exciting offense too, but it ain’t going to come from Howland. His teams are always going to be defense first and produce a lot of low scoring games, which will hopefully turn into low scoring wins.

Your post is spot on, thought, about the roster. From Newman to Herard to Peters, we’ve had several busts. Hopefully the bounces start to come our way on not only this front, but some of our shots too. We’ve had a horrible stretch of bad luck shooting this year that has to correct itself at some point.

I know nobody wanted to wait until years 4 and 5, but I’m content giving Howland a chance there. We are still starting two freshmen and getting significant minutes from a lot of second year players.

 

[Go Budaw]

Yep, agreed. I could make my original post way shorter by saying what we thought would be the best recruiting class in MSU history (the Herard / Keglar / Peters class) may have literally been the WORST class we ever signed, and it came during a year when we absolutely had to add 5-6 guys and completely reset the roster. It’s just unreal to think about the expectations vs. reality on that, and that doesn’t even take into account the Newman / Brooks helicopter parent situations either. I think anyone who can see all that BS and can’t cut Howland a little bit of slack is completely clueless.

 

[patdog]

Howland has to take some blame for all the busts. He’s paid a lot of money to identify which recruits will be able to contribute & which won’t. There were some red flags out there for many, if not all, of those busts. Many times, a 3-star with a lot of upside potential is a much better recruit than a 4 or 5 star with issues.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Stans was 18-13 (7-9 SEC) in year 3 after going 14-16 (5-11 SEC) in year 2.... This is basically Howlands year 2....

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I don’t think the Dino Mueslix method works in basketball. **

 

[TrueMaroonGrind]

I agree with most of your post. I don’t understand these people wanting to fire Howland already. He has had some pretty bad luck especially with that first year roster situation and all the busts in the Freshman class his second year.

However it sucks to not be in contention for anything in year 3. I still expect us to be a good team at home and hopefully improve on the road. We are lacking post scoring which is really killing us. Maybe Ado can find some moves as the year goes on and stop eating so many Butterfingers.

Hope springs eternal. I still think Howland is the guy to pull us out of this rut. We’ll see how I feel after the season is over.

 

[Shamoan]

You had me until the last paragraph. I would disagree with most of it. This team is NOT better than last year, the defense has improved at the expense of the offense which fell off a 17ing cliff into a murky abyss, if by decent shot at the NIT means mathematically still in it, I would agree. Floor coaching is a massive liability. It's funny people weren't saying rays year 3 was actually year 2....although he brought less to the table than howland. 17....the patriots just scored.

 

[She Mate Me]

You had me until the last paragraph. I would disagree with most of it. This team is NOT better than last year, the defense has improved at the expense of the offense which fell off a 17ing cliff into a murky abyss, if by decent shot at the NIT means mathematically still in it, I would agree. Floor coaching is a massive liability. It's funny people weren't saying rays year 3 was actually year 2....although he brought less to the table than howland. 17....the patriots just scored.

RPI's much better, Sagarin ratings much better, Kennedy said we were much better in his presser. We are definitely not better at shooting the ball, but we are better than last year's team at this point. Ado is going to be a stud before this is over btw. None of this is a comment on Howland's coaching because it did nothing for me today.

2015 was Ray's Year 2 to me and he improved us from 239 to 216 in RPI. He deserved another year, but our dumbass AD found this idiotic, washed up Howland guy and just HAD to have him.**

Shamoan Man!!!

All that disjointed **** I just typed was just done so I could type Shamoan Man at the end.

 

[MSUDC11]

I like Howland and hope he is the guy to bring MSU basketball back. But I think it’s fair to start asking the question, “What do we do if he isn’t that guy?” I think most everybody expected he would be another Stansbury or better, but that has not been the case so far.

If we are making positive strides at all, they aren’t very big. Tuesday is do or die. Lose at home to a 6-11 team with a 150+ RPI and it will be very apparent that we are miles away from where we should be at this point. Howland absolutely has to win that game. He absolutely has to start winning games like the ones we lost today and last Saturday. Otherwise, we are only moving backwards as a program.

Anything less than 9-9 in conference play is unacceptable and he enters next season with a ton of pressure. If we don’t break .500 overall then he shouldn’t get a next season.

 

[Shamoan]

All that doesn't mean anything if we continue to lose and end with a worse conference record (we all know the ooc schedule was a farce to pad the record and maybe build confidence). Year 1 he had 7 conference wins, two he had 6, three ain't looking good and our post play is getting worse if that is even possible, shooters all of the sudden can't shoot, ft % is laughable, and the offense is nonexistent. I will politely agree to disagree.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Save it. No one is listening right now. IF we win this season it will be the games we play defense both halves.

 

[Lettucexxxx]

The little episode with Peters costing us 6 points in 17 seconds and fouling out was the dagger. The sword was when we had to rest our starters, the bench gave a rendition of TWD.

Im not on the fire Howland train for this year. It would take a real egg head to believe that would be warranted. I do believe that we will be better next year.....how could we be worse. I will stand by my statements regarding his best years are behind him. I've never said he was a bad coach. But I think we can temper the final 4 talk. Hell, get us back into the Tourny next year and the next....ride off into the sunset......then let's make a Andy Canz hire.

 

[She Mate Me]

All that doesn't mean anything if we continue to lose and end with a worse conference record (we all know the ooc schedule was a farce to pad the record and maybe build confidence). Year 1 he had 7 conference wins, two he had 6, three ain't looking good and our post play is getting worse if that is even possible, shooters all of the sudden can't shoot, ft % is laughable, and the offense is nonexistent. I will politely agree to disagree.

Agree to disagree, but what does this post play comment mean? It's not just you, I've seen a number of negative comments lately about our post play. It makes no sense to me. We had no post presence last year to speak of except Herard's occasional good half.

Ado is really coming on to me. In the last two games he's averaged 11 pts and 10.5 reb on 10 of 13 shooting against two quality teams. He's on pace to break Varnado's frosh blocks record and is a real problem for opposing offenses. Really don't understand the criticism. What am I missing?

 

[Shamoan]

Since ware left, it's been an abomination

 

[Go Budaw]

Howland has to take some blame for all the busts. He’s paid a lot of money to identify which recruits will be able to contribute & which won’t. There were some red flags out there for many, if not all, of those busts. Many times, a 3-star with a lot of upside potential is a much better recruit than a 4 or 5 star with issues.

Howland is to blame for a guy whose dad played for us getting pissed and forcing him to transfer? Howland is to blame for a guy whose dad is a current assistant on the staff being pulled another direction by a psycho family situation? There will always be misses and misevaluations on the recruiting trail for various reasons. You sign 5 highly rated players, you hope 3 pan out. That’s the way it is. Signing 5 guys that are all 4* / 5* guys over 2 years and getting absolutely nothing from any of them is an extreme abnormality. Every MSU fan that pays attention was over the moon when each and every one of those guys signed with us. Blaming Howland now and saying he should have known better is hypocritical as hell.

The vast majority is bad luck, pure and simple. Of those 5 guys, Herard was the only one that doesn’t look like he ever belonged on the court for a major conference team. The other 4 had the tools to be serviceable at minimum (and, in Brooks’ case, possibly elite). It was attitude / family situations that got the rest of them. It’s extremely difficult to predict those types of situations 3 years in advance when you are on the recruiting trail, especially when you are talking about the most corrupt amateur sport on the planet.

 

[She Mate Me]

Since ware left, it's been an abomination

Okey dokey, just hafta agree to disagree again on recent post play.

 

[Croom's knee socks]

Howland takes the blame for our game plan in the second half. We came out to start the game by taking our time on offense and pounding the paint. Auburn is a very small finesse team. They had no answer for us inside. We completely got away from that in the second half. We played right into their hands by settling for lazy jump shots early in the shot clock but we made up for it by throwing lazy passes and being loose with the ball. That was bad coaching today. I’m hoping Howland can get it goin but in game adjustment or lack thereof like today concern me greatly.

 

[Dogariffic]

This is Year 3.
No excuses for anyone making $millions.
We make some sort of tourney this year or he is put on notice.
Next year is the “must win or gone year.”
Player turnover has been bad.... and yes I know other teams have it too.
Player effort has been bad or at best inconsistent.
In game coaching has even been questioned.
Win next year or he is gone! And IB gets a shot at bringing in someone else....

 

[thatsbaseball]

Just looking at coach Howland's past tells me he could have some degree of burn out. I can also see where he could be very cynical about the game and lost some of the focus he once had. I think he can still coach but at his age I also think it's gonna take some sort of wake up call (perhaps a prayer meeting with IB) and him asking himself is this the way he really wants to be remembered. I admittedly don't follow the individual players as closely as many of you do but anyone can see this team lacks some of the intangibles that have to come down from the head coach to win. I.E. When he takes the game seriously again...so will his team.

 

[Seinfeld]

Well said, and as disappointing as this season is turning out, the progress is evident. I think fans including myself are so frustrated because we’re so freaking close to turning that pivotal corner, but it’s looking like we’re still another year away. Regardless of whether folks want to believe that Howland’s on track or that he’s doing a poor job, he deserves another year and next year will indeed be the litmus test

Personally, I think the thing that’s just infuriating to me is that if Howland had taken over right after Stans, I would have been all for giving him 4 years to get things going again. However, how in the hell do you spend 3 years burning things to the ground and then still require 4 more to get into the NIT? It is just mind blowing as to how badly Strick screwed this whole thing up

 

[patdog]

It’s not bad luck when you sign a lot of players with issues & they don’t pan out.

 

[Go Budaw]

It’s not bad luck when you sign a lot of players with issues & they don’t pan out.

Haha, OK. Out of Peters, Newman, Brooks, Keglar, and Herard, would you care to tell us what you knew in the Spring / Summer of 2015 that would have led you to believe that we shouldn’t sign ANY of them?

 

[Irondawg]

Haha, OK. Out of Peters, Newman, Brooks, Keglar, and Herard, would you care to tell us what you knew in the Spring / Summer of 2015 that would have led you to believe that we shouldn’t sign ANY of them?

Not a fair question to ask anyone here. We aren’t close enough to know these guys personalities and situations. The brooks one was the only one way beyond control as you didn’t think anything would happen post signing day. But I’m not sure how elite he will be. Saw him in person last week and he’s a big boy and he’ll be at worst a decent college player but it’s going to take probably until he’s a jr.

Newman you had to land because in state legacy. Kegler was a gamble though. These kids that change schools a ton rarely are high makeup guys. Peters is really talented but unstable and we probably new that coming in but you hope providing a stable structure will get them in line.

I don’t blame howland for all of them but the problem is you don’t have any hyper competitiveness grinders outside of Nick or shooters at all or a backup pg.

Instead of recruiting to a certain type of roster he just took a bunch of highly rated players and hoped for the best and it hasn’t worked out very well to this point.

I’m very confused what to think at this point as he’s either coaching offense as bad as it can be coached or the players are incapable as a unit of running anything well

 

[PineGroveBully]

Ending up with a worse conference record with an improved team is highly likely. The conference is the best it's ever been. 6 is the most teams the sec has ever sent to the tourney and Joey brackets is talking 8 getting in. That only leaves 5 non tourney teams. Not many automatic wins out there. So a slightly worse conference record is not an automatic sign of a team with no improvement. Hopefully this will all be a moot point.

 

[VegasDawg13]

RPI's much better, Sagarin ratings much better

RPI is near useless to determine a team's quality, so I'll take your word on that one.

We finished last season ranked 88 per both Sagarin and KenPom. We are currently 83 per Sagarin and 82 per KenPom. So no, our ratings are not "much better."

 

[She Mate Me]

RPI is near useless to determine a team's quality, so I'll take your word on that one.

We finished last season ranked 88 per both Sagarin and KenPom. We are currently 83 per Sagarin and 82 per KenPom. So no, our ratings are not "much better."

Let's compare at year end so it's apples to apples. If we are still in the 80's you'll get no disagreement from me. Agree RPI is a **** quality indicator, but a very important and used indicator.

 

[mstateglfr]

...and our post play is getting worse if that is even possible...

Last year we had...
Herard- who struggled to catch entry passes(in part because our guards suck at entry passes) and turned the ball over at an insane rate for how little he handled it. His footwork was extremely limited, his FT shooting was brutal, and he was stumped by even moderately competent defenders.
Datcher- who should have redshirted as the game was too fast for him and he needed time to develop. He was basically a non-factor even though we were extremely thin in the post.
Holman- who is not a traditional post player. He is a stretch 4 that has good footwork, but is not built to run to the block and stand there every possession.

We have basically swapped Ado for Herard and Datcher as well as Holman have improved. Our post play has clearly improved- on both sides of the court.

 

[thf24]

It’s not bad luck when you sign a lot of players with issues & they don’t pan out.

Deciding you're not going to sign anyone with "issues" puts you on the road to a Rick Ray roster. 2012-2015 showed us that you have to play the game and take chances in recruiting if you want good talent, especially in basketball.

 

[KurtRambis4]

This^^^

It always kills me, seeing folks questioning the signing of Renardo or Malik, etc.

We are MSU.

We aren't Duke.

We CANNOT pick & choose which bluechips we recruit, ladies.

 

[Go Budaw]

Not a fair question to ask anyone here. We aren’t close enough to know these guys personalities and situations.

It’s a fair question to ask when no one was saying any of those guys had “issues” when they signed, including coaches of other big time programs who offered them. Hindsight is 20/20. It’s not fair to blame Howland for 2 busts and 3 transfers we signed when there were literally dozens of other power conference teams that recruited all of those same players very hard.

Newman - McDonald’s AA. Offers from everyone, and a Top 5 all time program still wanted him after his lackluster freshmen season.
Keglar - double digit Power 5 offers, including Indiana, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and every SEC school not named UK or UF. Transferred to another Power 5 school in Baylor who also offered him.
Peters - Offers from Gonzaga, Illinois, LSU, South Carolina, Wake Forest.
Herard - Offers from Kansas, UConn, Indiana, and about 10 other Power 5 programs.
Brooks - Offers from the entire SEC and currently playing for the defending national champions.

Everybody wanted these guys. Out of the 5, two were busts (a reasonable percentage) while the other 3 were all not good fits for reasons that went beyond basketball. It’s bad luck, pure and simple. No way to forecast things like “a kid will ask out of his LOI due to his bitter mother with an ax to grind” or “one of our more decorated former players will completely turn his back on the whole program for no reason”. Then you have Keglar who started and got lots of minutes as a true freshmen, and still wasn’t happy. Can’t pick out all the headcases with any degree of accuracy, and as Rambis said we have to take chances even when there are concerns because we need talent. Note that no one has even said who we should have signed instead of those guys.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

It always kills me, seeing folks questioning the signing of Renardo or Malik, etc.

We are MSU.

We aren't Duke.

We CANNOT pick & choose which bluechips we recruit, ladies.

View attachment 9397

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

I don’t blame howland for all of them but the problem is you don’t have any hyper competitiveness grinders outside of Nick or shooters at all or a backup pg.

BINGO! Nick is the only guy on our court who will try and bang his way through to the ball or goal. Sometimes he looks like a freshman and fails and others he looks great. But right now, he is the only one that you will see dive to the floor for a ball every time. Q, Peters, and Ado will sometimes. The rest will just walk away trying to look good or someplace to shoot a three from if the ball comes out to them.

Now the team DOES try to play defense but they still have stretches where they get frustrated as a group and stop defending.

If they ever grow up enough to battle through those stretches and not give up the big runs, we can win games with the defense we play... but they have to do it the entire game, not just one half.