Interesting thought...

[KurtRambis4]

if we beat LSU, at home Saturday, we will have finished our best regular season in 5 years (winning %), with our most inexperienced and youngest squad in that time frame.

To those that keep asking "where do you see any hope for next year?" That's where. Add in the fact that we will be adding (according to all reports) our most talented post player, two freshman post players who will most likely be ahead of where Herard and Datcher were this year (and probably Holman), and one of the best PGs in high school.

 

[Hump4Hoops]

That's incredible. This season has been miserable and I feel like we suck.

Yet it's still the best team we have put on the court in 5 years.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

And if we don't beat LSU......then what's your spin? Cause to be honest, I think we lose that game.

 

[TBone.sixpack]

We DO suck. There is no other way to spin it.

 

[KurtRambis4]

If we lose, then

we'll have tied with our most senior-laden, experienced team, in that time frame.

Im not sure what I'm trying to spin, so I don't think I can answer that. I'm sorry I hurt your buddy blues feelings.

 

[Xenomorph]

No doubt... we could suck-start a leaf blower.

#RIPBillPaxton

 

[KurtRambis4]

I think the majority

of those fans, me not included, basically quit watching us, after Y1 of Ray, so people on here really don't know how bad we were.

We were routinely getting blown out in the league, often, in these 5 years. Also, our SOS's in the Ray years were TERRIBLE.

 

[Digging dog]

Wow. I knew we've been bad. Didn't realize this year was so much better.

 

[crushing]

I don't follow the game of BB enough to say that we suck, but I know we are very young and have been in nearly every game we've played this year. We basically only had 1 big all year long due to Ado not qualifying. I may be wrong, but IMO the future is looking bright.

 

[KurtRambis4]

You may not

follow it but you just gave more insight than about 90% of those here.

 

[KurtRambis4]

I'd be surprised if

many on here knew we got beat by Missouri a few years back, 78-36...or something like that

 

[johnson86-1]

of those fans, me not included, basically quit watching us, after Y1 of Ray, so people on here really don't know how bad we were.

We were routinely getting blown out in the league, often, in these 5 years. Also, our SOS's in the Ray years were TERRIBLE.

I think that may be part of it, but I think people also (understandably) had incredibly high expectations because of Howland. yes, it took until year three every where else, but at Pitt he wasn't Ben 17ing Howland yet, and presumably at UCLA he was going against tougher in conference competition.

Even though we were essentially replacing our entire team other than Ready, Holman, and Spoon, I thought winning against mediocre competition in Europe might be a sign that we'd gel more quickly than we had a right to expect and allow us to do pretty well against the other mediocre to bad teams in the SEC.

 

[DudyDog]

many on here knew we got beat by Missouri a few years back, 78-36...or something like that

I don't remember the final score, but I do remember playing at Arkansas a few years back and we almost didn't score in the first half.

 

[L4Dawg]

I don't follow the game of BB enough to say that we suck, but I know we are very young and have been in nearly every game we've played this year. We basically only had 1 big all year long due to Ado not qualifying. I may be wrong, but IMO the future is looking bright.

Exactly. We may not have won many but we have been in most games. That is WAY better than we have been the last 5 years. Things are getting better. it will show on the record next year I think.

 

[Willow Grove Dawg]

Hopefully we just lived thru "The Croom Years" in basketball

We really need to make the NCAA tournament next year

 

[KurtRambis4]

I believe the bigger

factor was people just not knowing.

If my my friends are indicative of others here, HUGE msu sports fans, the vast majority of them basically quit watching us in 13 or so.

 

[KurtRambis4]

You get it*

*

 

[mstateglfr]

When you fall down a well, climbing a quarter of the way up is an improvement, yet you are still 3/4 away from safe.
Apply that to the program. Yup, we could end better than the previous 4 seasons, but that doesnt mean much. The bar just wasnt set high to begin with.


With that said, I think we are 4x better than under Ray. This team has 0 ability to close out a game with a win, but at least the have been in almost every game. Many of the losses this season were close and we were in the game either winning, tied, or down only a few with 5min or less. A loss is still a loss, but yeah we have had a legit chance to win a lot of those lost games which is better than losing by 20, i guess.

 

[KurtRambis4]

I'm certainly not trying

Yup, we could end better than the previous 4 seasons, but that doesnt mean much.

to imply that we were good this year, because we were better than those other 4. I'm just speaking to the number of folks that say "there's not much hope in us getting better in 17/18."

I think there is, and I believe this shows it.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

I'd be surprised if people knew that year's Missouri team was nothing like today's Missouri team. That Missouri team went 23-11 and made the NCAAs as a 9 seed. So we beat Missouri this year. That's great. Beating this year's Missouri team is comparable to beating this year's State team, not really all that much to brag about.

 

[KurtRambis4]

The point had nothing to

do Missouri, rather that we were at a point a few years ago where we were routinely getting blown out in the league. Night after night...and not by NCAA Tourney teams.

 

[FlotownDawg]

That was Ray's first year in 2012-2013

many on here knew we got beat by Missouri a few years back, 78-36...or something like that

The very next home game we played Vanderbilt and lost 72-31. We lost six games by 30 or more points that season. Two years later we trailed Arkansas 30-9 at halftime, and lost 61-41.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Sorry, I just don't see being tied with another terrible team as much of an accomplishment, even for a group of mostly freshmen. We're much better than we were in year one of the Ray era when he had all freshmen, and also in year two if you want to look at the second year for both coaches.

I haven't given up on Howland and this group of players, but the January optimism has taken a considerable hit with our play over the last two weeks.

 

[MSUDC11]

This team reminds me a lot of Stansbury's 2005-06 team. That team also had a decent start to the regular season and then just totally tanked. Ended up 15-15 and 5-11.

If LSU loses to Tennessee tonight, that will be 16 straight losses for them. SIXTEEN. It will be a dang travesty if we also lose to them.

By the way, we are locked in to the 12 seed in Nashville. Win on Saturday and we start off with Mizzou, lose and it's likely a rematch with LSU.

 

[tenureplan]

Agreed, I made that same comparison last night.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

So we are slightly better at losing than we used to be. I guess when we are where we are as a program, we have to cling to anything to have hope in.

In 2013 (Ray year 1, all FR team), we were 4-14 in the conference. Our average loss was by 21.2 pts. Only four of our losses were single digits. Seven were by 20 or more than 20, including losses by 30, 32, 35, 41 and 42. That was horrible and I hate myself for looking it up.

In 2014, we again went 4-14. But our average loss was only 13.9 pts. Improvement! But only three of the losses were single digits. Four were 20 or more, with three more 19 point losses. The biggest loss of the year was only by 22, so no massive blowouts like the year before, just pretty consistent 10-20 point losses.

In 2017, we are at five wins, possibly six. Our average loss is by 11 points, pretty comparable to 2014. But in those 12 losses, eight have been by single digits. The others are 10, 17, 27 and 29. I guess if there is hope, it's that we will figure out how to turn these close losses into wins somehow over the summer.

 

[engie]

This has been a shitshow -- no sugar coating it from me. Failed to meet expectations and worse than I expected, mainly because the team has lacked an "it factor" down the stretch that I thought we had early on and projected to improve over time, but has actually regressed. I'm still holding hope for lightning in a bottle in the tournament with the young guys basically knowing that was all they had to play for ever since the Kentucky loss and being unable to focus otherwise. May be horseshit -- we will see.

That said, it's difficult to try and take much from this type of season. Teams can fall apart and still have a lot of bright days on the horizon -- and trying to extrapolate much from the struggle isn't a worthwhile task -- especially when you are an elite recruiter. Ask the 2015 baseball team. And the 2009 baseball team.

Bottom line to me is -- this team has to compete for the NCAA tournament next year. Same deal as the 2011 and 2016 baseball teams. Year 3 -- Howland's history -- the recruiting that has been done -- it's time to be well on the path toward getting to where we are going. That said, I understand that it took Martin really 5 years to get going at USCe -- Pearl is going to take at least 4 at Auburn -- etc. So, it may be that the SEC just doesn't provide for a usual common-sense path to basketball success in the 2-3 year short term -- and it has to be a slow build due to raw athletes having to be groomed over time, rather than one-and-dones and immediately elite guys -- how the top 20-30 programs in the country do it.

 

[engie]

Experience as measured by KenPom and played with in excel a little bit, broken down by conference. Can be taken an infinite number of ways, but to me, it shows brighter days on the horizon for the conference overall. And maybe I expected too much, although it's fair to say we should have been better and are more talented than the past month shows us to be.

Dayton	A10	2.18			avg experience	Bottom 120 experience
VCU	A10	2.14		A10	1.659	5 of 14
La Salle	A10	2.05		ACC	1.691	5 of 15
St. Bonaventure	A10	1.92		American	1.634	6 of 11
Rhode Island	A10	1.79		Big10	1.467	9 of 14
Fordham	A10	1.77		Big12	1.725	3 of 10
Davidson	A10	1.71		Big East	1.654	2 of 10
Richmond	A10	1.65		Pac12	1.556	5 of 12
George Washington	A10	1.59		SEC	1.432	9 of 14
Saint Louis	A10	1.56
Duquesne	A10	1.35
George Mason	A10	1.28
Saint Joseph's	A10	1.22
Massachusetts	A10	1.02
Pittsburgh	ACC	2.31
Clemson	ACC	2.14
Notre Dame	ACC	2.09
Virginia Tech	ACC	1.89
North Carolina	ACC	1.86
Georgia Tech	ACC	1.85
Syracuse	ACC	1.74
Virginia	ACC	1.58
Louisville	ACC	1.58
Boston College	ACC	1.57
Duke	ACC	1.48
Miami FL	ACC	1.45
Wake Forest	ACC	1.41
Florida St.	ACC	1.26
North Carolina St.	ACC	1.16
Houston	Amer	2.15
UCF	Amer	2.11
SMU	Amer	1.89
Cincinnati	Amer	1.72
Connecticut	Amer	1.64
Tulane	Amer	1.56
East Carolina	Amer	1.55
Tulsa	Amer	1.53
Temple	Amer	1.41
Memphis	Amer	1.37
South Florida	Amer	1.04
Wisconsin	B10	2.05
Michigan	B10	2.05
Illinois	B10	1.93
Ohio St.	B10	1.69
Northwestern	B10	1.69
Purdue	B10	1.56
Rutgers	B10	1.43
Nebraska	B10	1.33
Minnesota	B10	1.29
Indiana	B10	1.25
Maryland	B10	1.18
Michigan St.	B10	1.16
Penn St.	B10	1.02
Iowa	B10	0.91
Iowa St.	B12	2.55
Texas Tech	B12	2.39
West Virginia	B12	1.96
Baylor	B12	1.91
Kansas	B12	1.76
TCU	B12	1.62
Kansas St.	B12	1.6
Oklahoma St.	B12	1.51
Oklahoma	B12	1.03
Texas	B12	0.92
Butler	BE	2.04
Villanova	BE	1.88
Seton Hall	BE	1.81
Creighton	BE	1.77
Georgetown	BE	1.76
Xavier	BE	1.71
Marquette	BE	1.68
DePaul	BE	1.59
Providence	BE	1.4
St. John's	BE	0.9
Colorado	P12	2.11
Arizona St.	P12	2.06
Washington St.	P12	2
Stanford	P12	2
California	P12	1.89
Oregon	P12	1.79
Utah	P12	1.62
UCLA	P12	1.41
Arizona	P12	1.11
USC	P12	1.07
Washington	P12	0.84
Oregon St.	P12	0.77
Arkansas	SEC	2.27
Florida	SEC	2.02
Mississippi	SEC	1.96
Vanderbilt	SEC	1.84
Georgia	SEC	1.7
Alabama	SEC	1.56
South Carolina	SEC	1.55
Texas A&M	SEC	1.34
Missouri	SEC	1.06
Tennessee	SEC	1.05
Auburn	SEC	1.05
LSU	SEC	1.01
Kentucky	SEC	0.94
Mississippi St.	SEC	0.7

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[KurtRambis4]

No, more so that we

improving. It takes talent, and that's what we are collecting.

Answer this, do you think we'll improve, be worse, or the same next season?

ETA: Check out our SOS this years. Ridiculously bad.

 

[Bulldogg31]

I'll admit I just quit watching a few games ago. I didn't even know we had a game last night until a Gamecock friend texted me "nice comeback". So of course I tune in just in time to see SC shoot a thousand free throws and us lose again.

It's just not ok for me to watch Msu hoops.