A pattern of losing

[DawgatAuburn]

About a year ago I posted this

Bama 44-44 with 9:30 left
Final Bama 68-58
outscored 24-14 down the stretch

at Bama 58-57 with 6:12 left
Final Bama 71-62
outscored 14-4 down the stretch

South Carolina up 64-63 with 5:22 left
Final USC 77-73
outscored 14-9 down the stretch

at UGA tied 54-54 with 6:30 left
Final 79-72
outscored 25-18 down the stretch

So we can add to it,

at Ole Miss up 54-53 with 4:27 left
Final Ole Miss 64-58
outscored 11-4 down the stretch

at Bama tied 54-54 with 6:50 left
Final 68-62 Bama
outscored 14-8 down the stretch

at UK down 55-54 with 9:47 left
Final UK 78-65
Outscored 23-11 down the stretch

That's not to mention the Auburn game where we allowed 52 second half points.

For whatever reason, we don't make winning plays when the game is on the line. Even with our well-documented shooting struggles, we can consistently play teams close for 30-35 minutes, but we can't consistently make plays down the stretch to win games. I personally don't see a whole lot of fight in the team either. We seem content to just play ball and when something bad happens to us then it's like "Oh well I guess we won't win this one." That starts with and includes Howland, who acts like he's coaching his grandson's church league team. Over the last seven years we have allowed a culture of losing to take hold of our basketball program and until we get a coach and players who decide they will do what it takes to evict it, we are going to stay a losing program. Maybe Howland and this group can do it, but that seems unlikely at this point. Maybe it will happen when we add Perry, Woodard and Stewart to the roster. Maybe there needs to be addition by subtraction on the staff and/or the roster. Whatever it is, I'm ready for it. All this losing sucks.

 

[ShrubDog]

One possible reason we are not making plays down the stretch is we don’t have any LEGS~man to man exerts a bunch of energy and we seem to peter out every 2nd half IMO

 

[DawgatAuburn]

For the life of me I don't understand why we don't play some 2-3 zone. Last night was a perfect opportunity. At times last night Kentucky just drove to the rim at will. They are not a good shooting team. Get in the zone and make them shoot you out of it. If they do it, OK fine, go back to man but for Pete's sake try something different every once in a while.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

About a year ago I posted this



So we can add to it,

at Ole Miss up 54-53 with 4:27 left
Final Ole Miss 64-58
outscored 11-4 down the stretch

at Bama tied 54-54 with 6:50 left
Final 68-62 Bama
outscored 14-8 down the stretch

at UK down 55-54 with 9:47 left
Final UK 78-65
Outscored 23-11 down the stretch

That's not to mention the Auburn game where we allowed 52 second half points.

For whatever reason, we don't make winning plays when the game is on the line. Even with our well-documented shooting struggles, we can consistently play teams close for 30-35 minutes, but we can't consistently make plays down the stretch to win games. I personally don't see a whole lot of fight in the team either. We seem content to just play ball and when something bad happens to us then it's like "Oh well I guess we won't win this one." That starts with and includes Howland, who acts like he's coaching his grandson's church league team. Over the last seven years we have allowed a culture of losing to take hold of our basketball program and until we get a coach and players who decide they will do what it takes to evict it, we are going to stay a losing program. Maybe Howland and this group can do it, but that seems unlikely at this point. Maybe it will happen when we add Perry, Woodard and Stewart to the roster. Maybe there needs to be addition by subtraction on the staff and/or the roster. Whatever it is, I'm ready for it. All this losing sucks.

I think you are spot on. But its just not confined to MSU. I see a lot of college basketball players who look like robots out there. But what should we expect when these guys came up in the AAU culture where they play so many games in a weekend, nobody really cares who wins or loses? Just get the games in and the scouting reports filed.

These college players are all good in their own way. Chances are if they want to, there is always another game to play - whether it be in Knoxville or Lithuania. There is no urgency in these kids as opposed to that kids in HS (or the walk-one at the end of the bench) who know that after the next loss in the post season tournament, the next stop is the six foot and under league at the Y.

The best coaches in college basketball know how to tap into that will to win. That’s what makes Calipari good. But even he struggles with it at times. I look at this UK team and I don’t see anybody busting their *** like D’Aaron Fox or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist did.

I don’t know what Howland is missing, but I agree with you, he doesn’t have the fire anymore to get these kids to leave it on the floor. And most of them aren’t uber talented to overcome their lack of competitiveness.

 

[ShrubDog]

Me and you both....UK was a lot fresher at the end of the game than us, it’s a pattern I have talked about going on two years now. And like you said there are times where we don’t matchup at all and the other team is slicing us up. I’ve given up on Ben changing his D up some because he is hard headed.

 

[KingBarkus]

My first time watching an entire UK game. I was surprised how pedestrian they looked. No alpha, take-charge guy. Us? Bottom line for me is Howland will never get us to the NCAA tournament until we improve our offense. Shooting, approach, bb IQ, you name it. When UK went zone late, we literally had no clue. Cue the jacking of the 3's. Howland should be embarrassed how inept we looked against the zone. I'm losing faith in Howland. We don't play as a team, no communication, and worse, jawing at each other on the court. Mark, the OP, laid out the pattern of collapsing in close games. It appears to me someone has to get hot (Peters at Bama), Q last night for us to be in a game against a quality opponent on the road. That's a recipe for losing.

 

[Shmuley]

Would love to see some actual red *** out of the coaches when necessary. And some red *** out of the players when necessary. At least pretend you care, damn it.

 

[gymdawg.sixpack]

Y'all can break this all down into the most minute if components but it all boils down to 1 simple fact: we have 0 leadership

 

[8dog]

We can have all the leadership we want but its not going to put the ball in the bucket

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Amen

 

[msugolf]

You nailed it here. It all boils down to leadership like gymdawg said - players and more importantly coaches. Howland might say the right things in post game of why we lost - settling for too many 3s, no off ball movement, poor positioning/spacing, lack of focus, etc. - but that all boils down to how he has prepared these guys in practice and off season. These guys have no sense of urgency or level of what's expected. No accountability. I know Howland cares about losing but he sure as hell doesn't look it. And on top of that, our guys just aren't that talented, regardless of what people read on recruiting sites.

Ben was a good coach and did great things but he also had about 15 NBA All-stars at ucla. Its really hard to screw that up regardless of who your coach is. Also, Ben's personality doesn't seem to fit the current theme of MSU coaches. I was really apprehensive when we hired him cause I follow college basketball closely and knew his drawbacks but was willing to see it out. But I'm afraid my worst concerns are coming true. He'll continue to recruit "stars" that don't fit what we need on the roster, and likewise keep people hoping that "next year is the year I guess." But in the end, we're kind of stuck in a no-man's land and I'm afraid we have a couple of more years in this tailspin before we start to cycle out of it.

 

[johnson86-1]

About a year ago I posted this



So we can add to it,

at Ole Miss up 54-53 with 4:27 left
Final Ole Miss 64-58
outscored 11-4 down the stretch

at Bama tied 54-54 with 6:50 left
Final 68-62 Bama
outscored 14-8 down the stretch

at UK down 55-54 with 9:47 left
Final UK 78-65
Outscored 23-11 down the stretch

That's not to mention the Auburn game where we allowed 52 second half points.

For whatever reason, we don't make winning plays when the game is on the line. Even with our well-documented shooting struggles, we can consistently play teams close for 30-35 minutes, but we can't consistently make plays down the stretch to win games. I personally don't see a whole lot of fight in the team either. We seem content to just play ball and when something bad happens to us then it's like "Oh well I guess we won't win this one." That starts with and includes Howland, who acts like he's coaching his grandson's church league team. Over the last seven years we have allowed a culture of losing to take hold of our basketball program and until we get a coach and players who decide they will do what it takes to evict it, we are going to stay a losing program. Maybe Howland and this group can do it, but that seems unlikely at this point. Maybe it will happen when we add Perry, Woodard and Stewart to the roster. Maybe there needs to be addition by subtraction on the staff and/or the roster. Whatever it is, I'm ready for it. All this losing sucks.

Whatever the reason, it can change overnight. But unfortunately probably not likely to without a new player. We just don't have a person with good enough talent and attitude/mentality to lead. Q and Holman are good enough that we could make it without a true alpha, if we had good chemistry. But of course we don't have good chemistry.

At this point, our only hope for turning it around is for Lamar Peters or young spoon to take over the team.

Lamar Peters obviously hasn't shown anything this year to indicate he will do that, but based on his play last year, I think he has (or had?) a good enough combination of talent and attitude to do it. Obviously extremely unlikely that he is suddenly going to not just turn back into the player he was last year, but turn into the player you would have expected with normal progression.

Young spoon I guess has the natural talent, but I haven't seen anything in the limited time I've watched to think that the team is starting to look to him or that he's ready to take over.

 

[DAWG61]

Probably in foul trouble in every one of those games. Foul trouble killed us last night too. Kentucky must of scored at least half their points from the FT line the last ten minutes of the game. Refs have been very one-sided in the Florida and Kentucky games. We got the benefit of the refs vs Arkansas.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

I still think it the fact that we have no "go to" player in that stretch.

Who would you have faith in for us to run plays for in crunch time?

Ben has to pick someone in that time and so far he has not, so they stand around looking for someone to make the shot.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

My first time watching an entire UK game. I was surprised how pedestrian they looked. No alpha, take-charge guy. Us? Bottom line for me is Howland will never get us to the NCAA tournament until we improve our offense. Shooting, approach, bb IQ, you name it. When UK went zone late, we literally had no clue. Cue the jacking of the 3's. Howland should be embarrassed how inept we looked against the zone. I'm losing faith in Howland. We don't play as a team, no communication, and worse, jawing at each other on the court. Mark, the OP, laid out the pattern of collapsing in close games. It appears to me someone has to get hot (Peters at Bama), Q last night for us to be in a game against a quality opponent on the road. That's a recipe for losing.

They are headed for an 8 or 9 seed - at best.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

We can have all the leadership we want but its not going to put the ball in the bucket

Isn't that what a go-to guy is supposed to do?

 

[Philly Dawg]

I suspect we avoid the 2-3 zone to keep our bigs out of foul trouble.

 

[ShrubDog]

Usually players foul less in a 2-3 so there has to be another reason. And we are just talking about changing it up some, not be Syracuse.

We are a different team in back half of games. We don’t make as many baskets and don’t have as much juice. Once the legs are gone the shot follows.

 

[MSU601Dawg]

About a year ago I posted this



So we can add to it,

at Ole Miss up 54-53 with 4:27 left
Final Ole Miss 64-58
outscored 11-4 down the stretch

at Bama tied 54-54 with 6:50 left
Final 68-62 Bama
outscored 14-8 down the stretch

at UK down 55-54 with 9:47 left
Final UK 78-65
Outscored 23-11 down the stretch

That's not to mention the Auburn game where we allowed 52 second half points.

For whatever reason, we don't make winning plays when the game is on the line. Even with our well-documented shooting struggles, we can consistently play teams close for 30-35 minutes, but we can't consistently make plays down the stretch to win games. .

Exactly what I was saying the other day, but I just look at it the opposite of you guys. Except for UF and Cincy, we're right there with pretty much everybody we play 30-35 minutes into the game, but for whatever reason (everyone on here has a different one), we get outplayed the last 5 minutes.

The reason that encourages me instead of it being the opposite is because I think we're that close to being able to turn the corner. Not only are we tied with most every NCAA bound team after 3/4 of 90% of our games, but it doesn't look like a fluke. We actually "look" like we're just as good or better.

Plus UK, UF, and Auburn are out of the way now so the schedule gets easier. If we can just improve slightly and beat lesser teams like USCe, Mizzou, LSU, etc... we might be looking at our best year in the last 6 and quite a significant jump from last year's record.

Hell had we closed the deal in just 3 out of the 4 against Bama, OM, UK, or Auburn we'd be easily looking at an at large berth and the Hump would be packed again

 

[DAWG61]

If we ever start shooting it well we are going to beat the breaks off a couple of teams

 

[8dog]

We arent going to start shooting it well this year. We arent cold. We just arent good at shooting

 

[Lettucexxxx]

Probably in foul trouble in every one of those games. Foul trouble killed us last night too. Kentucky must of scored at least half their points from the FT line the last ten minutes of the game. Refs have been very one-sided in the Florida and Kentucky games. We got the benefit of the refs vs Arkansas.

i agree with everyone in this post....but chose to reply to you Dawg61. If I had a dollar for every game you and I attended together......I would not have had to rely on Wisome Frazier's 3 pointers at RosieBabys.....not sure on that spelling....never walked in that place sober....

im on board with this not being a very bad team....just a team playing very poorly. We have flashes of good, never great but good enough to have won at least 2 more games than we have to date. If it were not for Q.......I don't even want to finish that sentence.

Yep, depth in the post and foul trouble. Two major problems. It's like the HIV. One terrible thing leads to the next. We are infected.

I don't see the IB letting this go on too much longer without some sort of change.....whether it's with Ben, the Hump, the seating. He isn't the type of person who loses for very long.