Bye week= Remembering we have a basketball team
- Thread starter curseddawgs
- Start date
Covid gave everyone another year. My son is a senior this year but has another year available if he wants it. Makes grad school more of an option for him. I'd imagine the same is true for Ado since he already graduated.
Could have been reality that players brought in would hurt his chances of playing.
Could have been he did what countless others have done over the last handful of years and transferred for his last year even though he played a bunch at his previous school.
The dude is Ontario Harper old at this point- he redshirted his first year, so last year was already his 5th at MSU. Hope he shows out in the AAC
Ado transferred late. I think the thought process was he was going pro and our staff went out and built a small ball lineup via transfer portal with the assumption of moving on from him. Cincinnati also hired their coach a little later so that might have something to do with him transferring there under the radar.
Our history says you are correct. As many years Msu has been playing basketball, not many have been good overall.
I've always thought it was funny that a good portion of our fans thought we were good at basketball. I personally think it's because we've been better than Ole Miss, it's crazy the power that has. Because nationally we have mattered like 10% of the time.
Since 1990, we have 9 NCAA tournament appearances, 2 SEC regular season titles, 3 SEC tournament titles, 2 sweet 16s, Final Four, and many years stuck on the bubble while only having 4 coaches in that span. Take the Ray years and the first two Howland years and our program has been one of the best in the SEC over that time.
With how loaded the SEC is this year, we can't be losing games to the Vandy's and A&M's of the world this year if we want decent seeding come March
I was born in 1980...
by the time I was 9-10 and first started really being into basketball, Mississippi State had a tournament team and had won the SEC.
Then, during my early to mid teens, we were beating Shaq at LSU, beating Kentucky, winning the SEC, and going to the Final Four.
In my late teens, there was a dip, but by my 20's, we were ranked, a tournament team again and either winning the West or winning the whole conference.
By my 30's, we dipped again, and have been battling back since.
Outside of a very few seasons, we were never Duke/Kansas/Kentucky good, but we were nationally relevant (or at the very least "good") for about half of my life.
It has nothing to do with Ole Miss (though those win streaks were pretty damned sweet).
Correct. Since 1990 the SEC programs (not including A&M and Mizzou) that have been no doubt been better than us in hoops are Kentucky, Florida, Arkansas. I would say Tennessee and LSU have been better but everyone else is either equal to us (Alabama) or below us.
That’s a pretty broad statement covering 30 years. You can’t ignore the fact that since 2000, 12 SEC schools have made the Sweet 16 at least once. Only MSU and Georgia have not. And since that time 9 schools have made at least one Elite Eight. While Kentucky, Arkansas, Auburn, South Carolina and Florida have made at least one Final Four. It seems really hard to make an argument that we stand out above that crowd.
you can’t just pretend like Rick Ray and half of Howland’s tenure doesn’t exist.
A&M and Mizzou HAVE been better than us. Mizzou has an elite 8 and A&M a sweet 16 in the last decade or so.
Listen I appreciate our Final Four. I was a student then. I watched us beat KY in the Dome. But let’s not pretend that it carries any weight over what the rest of the SEC has done in the last 20 years.
Since 2000, ole miss didn't make the tournament 2002-2013. Auburn had no appearances 2003-2018. South Carolina's drought was 2004-2017. Those three had some decent teams and NIT runs during that time but they were mediocre programs that did not invest in facilities or coaching staffs. Our drought 2009-2019 had more to do with the fact that Stans' shady recruiting finally caught up with him and the program and we hired the wrong guy to rebuild the program.
We have played in a grand total of one NCAA Tourney game since 2009, and we didn't even win it. Nobody on our team was even born yet when we made the run in '96, and many of them were still in diapers when we won the SEC in '04. Heck, we are coming up on 10 years since Stansbury's last season here.
I don't know how one can look at our program and say we are one of the best in the league. When the stars are aligned we have the potential to be good every once in a while, but more often than not we are a mid to lower tier team in the league. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to pretend the 90's and 2000's matter anymore. It's no different than a Tennessee or Nebraska football fan hyping up their program nowadays, except those schools actually did have a period where they were nationally elite. We had a handful of good teams, a couple of REALLY good teams, and then a lot of obscurity.
I don't know how one can look at our program and say we are one of the best in the league. When the stars are aligned we have the potential to be good every once in a while, but more often than not we are a mid to lower tier team in the league. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to pretend the 90's and 2000's matter anymore. It's no different than a Tennessee or Nebraska football fan hyping up their program nowadays, except those schools actually did have a period where they were nationally elite. We had a handful of good teams, a couple of REALLY good teams, and then a lot of obscurity.
If it was 2011 instead of 2021, I think it's fair to say we're one of the best programs in the SEC. Unfortunately the last 10 years have put a serious dent in that.
The biggest issue for me was that even when we were having great years under Stans, we always underachieved at the end. So it's difficult for me to see is as an elite program even then. 1996 was special, though.
I will believe it when I see it. I have seen a lot of "street ball" from Howland teams. I hope to see a little more disciplined approach on offense this season. I've seen flashes of it from his teams but only time will tell.
My thoughts exactly. Nobody outside our own fanbase remembers that we were really good and won the SEC in 2004, because we did absolutely nothing in the postseason.
I eagerly await the basketball season so you can claim the SEC instructs refs to make MSU lose due to an upcoming match-up, but also be good enough to be close to ranked due to a different upcoming match-up.
That team was good enough to go to the final four that year. That season is really a microcosm of the Stans era at State.
You are right. My point that I was trying to make to the poster that said we have historically not been good was that what we have done in the last 30 years is actually better than our fan base gives the program credit for and is better than Auburn, Georgia, ole miss, South Carolina, and can argue our success with Vandy and Bama's in that span.
Everyone points to the Xavier game which was no doubt a disaster. For me it all started with the Vandy loss in the SEC Tourney. I know that Roberts had the infamous injury along the baseline in that game, but going one and done in the SECT when we just needed another win or two to lock up a 1 seed was the first red flag.
2003 also really makes me mad. We got to play in freaking Birmingham in the first two rounds, which is as much of a home game as we'll ever have in the NCAA Tourney, and lost to Butler before anyone knew Butler existed. We had a Sweet 16 or Elite 8 team at worst that year as well, and we got put in the Region with a 1 seed (Oklahoma) who we had beaten in the regular season.
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Then you are arguing the same point that everybody says about Mississippi living in the past regarding their Dunkel national championships. Nobody cares what you did 30 years ago when you have stunk for the past decade.
You can’t tout our Final Four from 25 years ago and then turn right around and say we are better than a program who has been to a Final Four during THIS decade. They have had more recent success than us hands down.
The other difference I see with our program is that while I feel like the UT and Nebraska fans are chomping at the bit for a return to the glory days, I honestly don’t think our fans care.
Sure, most of us will say that it’d be nice to be good at basketball, but who’s gonna put money into it? Who’s gonna make the effort to drive to a game? How many would even stay up past 10 to watch a late night game on TV?
We’ve hashed out reasons numerous times as to why we are where we are, but compared to the rowdy years, the lifeblood of the program is just dry. It needs a massive overhaul, and hopefully this year is somehow a start for that
Sure, most of us will say that it’d be nice to be good at basketball, but who’s gonna put money into it? Who’s gonna make the effort to drive to a game? How many would even stay up past 10 to watch a late night game on TV?
We’ve hashed out reasons numerous times as to why we are where we are, but compared to the rowdy years, the lifeblood of the program is just dry. It needs a massive overhaul, and hopefully this year is somehow a start for that
That Xavier team lost to Duke 63 - 66 and is touted as the best team Xavier ever had. I knew we would lose when one of their guys hit a half court shot at the half time buzzer. Losing to Butler was totally uncalled for. It is hard to over come two starters going 0-fer. Stansbury should have sit Ignersky and Frazier.
That Butler game was painful to watch. All I remember is horrible shooting and Butler running the damn weave the whole game.
We have not been good in basketball in years. Even in recent years when people were excited about the one or two possible NBA players we had in reality the teams still sucked. Pretty sure most of us were saying it was time to fire Howland last year, the year before. He went( or somebody did) out and got some players. I guess we will see if he can get something done with this talented roster. I sure hope he does. Final Four would be great. Elite Eight ? If not he must be about washed up.
We held them to 47 points and still lost the game somehow. It was unreal how bad we were offensively that night.
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