Today sucks, but let's please not devolve into a full-on garbage fan base...

[jamdawg96]

It's still January. We have a lot to clean up, and I'll admit that I worry about the mental fortitude of this team, but there's still a lot of season left, and a lot of time to gel and develop better habits when the pressure is on.

Football season is still fresh in our minds. The beauty of basketball (and baseball) is that there's a lot more room for error throughout the season. We'll take a seeding hit for now, but there's plenty of schedule left to get it back. Atmosphere looked great today. Just remember, we supported plenty of teams in the late 90s and early 2000s that went through skids. I hope that, as a fanbase, we don't overreact to this and go back to not showing up. That would be pretty short-sighted and, quite frankly, indicative of weak-minded people.

In the age of hot takes, instant reaction, and #fakenews, sometimes it's useful to take a deep breath and see the big picture. We can't fully judge this team until we get a bigger sample size of conference play. If we get back on track and get hot in March, this week won't matter. If we don't we can all flip out in March and start issuing ultimatums for 2020.

Maybe we aren't as good as we thought. Maybe Howland isn't developing talent (that HE reeled in) as well as we thought he would. But if you're claiming that as facts already, you're full of ****.

Underachieving football season + bowl game bed-shitting + two disappointing basketball games = vulnerable fanbase

Go drink a beer and watch the NFL playoffs.

 

[ShrubDog]

Stopped at clean up. How many 17ing years does it take to clean up? We could turn it around but we are playing from behind now. This is an experienced team, there is no cleaning up.

 

[Hankp22]

Yep

Strongly agree

We have two very important basketball games next week. Let's get to .500. It's a frustrating start but it's also January. We need a good showing Tuesday.

 

[jamdawg96]

As someone who covered SEC basketball for years and now coaches high school basketball, I can tell you that sometimes it takes years for players to abandon an unstructured mentality when the game is on the line and work to get good looks. There is no pace in team sports like the last two minutes of a close basketball game. Whether you've seen it or not, we are making progress (individually and as a team) with decision-making for MOST of the game. I'm still waiting to see if Howland can teach and/or make these guys trust the offense/system late in games.

Again, as stated in my original post, I do worry about the mental fortitude of this team. It's completely understandable to be frustrated with our poor decisions late in the game. I'm just saying it's a big hurdle to fix.

 

[8dog]

No one on this team played under the old coach. So how does that make sense?

 

[jamdawg96]

I'm talking about the type of basketball a lot of our players have been playing their whole lives. Try to keep up.

 

[mount lefroy]

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.......and a social media overreaction

 

[Rayburn8]

Completely agree

 

[8dog]

Ok whatever. Where are other schools getting their kids? How hard is it to run an inbounds thats not throwing it to the backcourt? How hard is it to run one set. Just one? How hard is it to know how to defend a pick and roll—will that take holman 4 more years?
to

 

[olblue.sixpack]

No one on this team played under the old coach. So how does that make sense?

It makes no sense at all. And i won’t get back back those prescious seconds that I spent reading the OP.

 

[jamdawg96]

Trust me, I see what you're referring to. I've been worried by the lack of (or redundancy of same) sets during Howland's tenure, but we do run sets. And we're still making extra passes and getting good looks when we're playing well.

We played a better than expected, well-coached team today. Rivalry game with a lot of emotion. **** happens. The difference, to me, was late in the game... they took their time and worked to get iso and/or open looks on the perimeter with ball movement more than we did. Our inability to run what sets we have and work for a good look when the game was on the line was disappointing. That has to be fixed.

As for where other schools are getting their kids... that's another topic that I don't feel fully qualified/comfortable to address on a message board. I don't want to **** on in-state and/or urban coaching without fully knowing what their circumstances are from a coaching/culture standpoint. All I'll say is that the tendency for our guards to occasionally abandon the game plan late and rush shots reminds me of the **** I see on a near-daily basis. Urban youth leagues and AAU teams are all about iso-takeover late in games.

Edited to add:
I realize that most of the job to fix bad habits is on Howland. But I think he still has time this season to develop better habits. We shall see.

 

[jamdawg96]

Hot take.

 

[8dog]

Nvm

 

[msugolf]

Trust me, I see what you're referring to. I've been worried by the lack of (or redundancy of same) sets during Howland's tenure, but we do run sets. And we're still making extra passes and getting good looks when we're playing well.

We played a better than expected, well-coached team today. Rivalry game with a lot of emotion. **** happens. The difference, to me, was late in the game... they took their time and worked to get iso and/or open looks on the perimeter with ball movement more than we did. Our inability to run what sets we have and work for a good look when the game was on the line was disappointing. That has to be fixed.

As for where other schools are getting their kids... that's another topic that I don't feel fully qualified/comfortable to address on a message board. I don't want to **** on in-state and/or urban coaching without fully knowing what their circumstances are from a coaching/culture standpoint. All I'll say is that the tendency for our guards to occasionally abandon the game plan late and rush shots reminds me of the **** I see on a near-daily basis. Urban youth leagues and AAU teams are all about iso-takeover late in games.

Edited to add:
I realize that most of the job to fix bad habits is on Howland. But I think he still has time this season to develop better habits. We shall see.

Buddy he’s had these guys for 3-4 years and hasn’t taught them these things. Don’t know why you are suddenly thinking he’s gonna do it now. You can’t do what you don’t know how to do.

 

[jamdawg96]

That's simply not true. Despite bad decisions late today, our decision-making as a whole has improved this season. Some of that can naturally be attributed to maturity, but we also made much better decisions late in some of our closer non-conference games this year... hence our (still) solid record overall. But emotions were as high as they've been all year today. We reverted. That's concerning. I'm sure Howland has seen this plenty of times throughout his career. Let's see what happens.

 

[triton28]

The difference was the middle 6 minutes of the second half. We couldn’t buy a basket.

 

[tired]

That's simply not true. Despite bad decisions late today, our decision-making as a whole has improved this season. Some of that can naturally be attributed to maturity, but we also made much better decisions late in some of our closer non-conference games this year... hence our (still) solid record overall. But emotions were as high as they've been all year today. We reverted. That's concerning. I'm sure Howland has seen this plenty of times throughout his career. Let's see what happens.

Ray? Ray Charles?

 

[mount lefroy]

That's simply not true. Despite bad decisions late today, our decision-making as a whole has improved this season. Some of that can naturally be attributed to maturity, but we also made much better decisions late in some of our closer non-conference games this year... hence our (still) solid record overall. But emotions were as high as they've been all year today. We reverted. That's concerning. I'm sure Howland has seen this plenty of times throughout his career. Let's see what happens.

I’d argue that the right lineup was not in the game to get a stop on D when it was tied at 77. So I’m saying that’s on Howland. But Ole Miss is a damn good team and should be given a tip of the cap. This game isn’t nearly as embarrassing as the chapped asses in here want to make out.

 

[jamdawg96]

Cold shooting hurt us for sure. Would have liked to see us push to the basket more as the misses piled up. Our bigs were cleaning up most of the mistakes we made penetrating with put backs, as opposed to being negated by long rebounds from rushed/missed shots outside.

 

[jamdawg96]

Would've thought having Holman in on that defensive possession would've helped, so I agree with ya there, but they also got away with a double dribble after some solid man defense by Ado. After that, they spaced us out and (mostly because we feared another perimeter shot) got a good driving lane for Tyree that Nick was unable to stop.

What really beat us there was the response by Q on the following offensive possession, which is why a lot of people are understandably frustrated. Old habits die hard.

 

[tcdog70]

Ball game is tied up and Ole Miss dude double dribbles twice and Refs swallow whistle, just like the mugging of Q against SC. But we missed too many layups. Just make layups and we win.

 

[Tall Dawg]

Cold shooting hurt us for sure. Would have liked to see us push to the basket more as the misses piled up. Our bigs were cleaning up most of the mistakes we made penetrating with put backs, as opposed to being negated by long rebounds from rushed/missed shots outside.

Holman has got to do better on defense and our whole team
needs to concentrate and make more FT’s.
Missed to many today and last Tuesday.

Got to correct a lot of items starting next week before
it is to late.

 

[Lowdog]

Jamdawg I come in peace

I also played high school ball and played a lot league ball but did not play college. And this was many years ago before AAU ball. From my now limited interaction with young b-ball players is their a real disconnect with structured b-ball. Has it become totally single me players and forget playing team ball. Also is it all about and only about the shock value/fan reaction to a monster dunk or total dominated blocked shot. That’s what I’ve been seeing in youth ball urban and otherwise.

 

[jamdawg96]

Absolutely. I think the main issue for our team right now is maintaining a strong mentality (and sticking to what you've worked on or what's worked for that particular game) when the pressure is on. It's mostly Howland's job to help us accomplish this, and I think we've made strides over the past few years, but there's obviously some work left to do. It's easy for fans like us to point this out, but it's not as easy as people think to correct.

I might be reaching, but I feel like fans giving up after two bad games is just as indicative of weak-minded issues as our late game blunders.

 

[MSUDC11]

There’s plenty of time to make up for this week and I think we win our next two games, but it’s also perfectly reasonable to be mad about the fact that this experienced, super talented team just lost a huge game at home in front of maybe the best crowd they’ll have all year, and this is immediately after they laid an egg against a mediocre at best team on Tuesday.

I don’t think people are giving up on the season, but we are off to a really bad start in conference play with a brutal stretch upcoming. There’s plenty of cause for concern.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

I hear that a lot early in the season in every sport that MSU participated in. And “occasionally”, it works out in the end

After we lost to UF and Kentucky in football we were told to “let it play out” and the team got better, but still fell woefully short of expectations.

Sure, there was a whole lot of melting with about 8 games to go in baseball last year, when it looked like we might not even be above .500, let alone make to tourney. I actually don’t believe that team “earned” a trip to the tourney, but heck, when they got there they certainly over-achieved to finish 3rd in the CWS, albeit, with one of the worst overall records ever to finish that high.

And then we get to basketball. The team is pre-season ranked, has a good run through non-conference in the 86th toughest non-con schedule. More expectations are raised. And then.... the SEC starts..... and back to reality.

Ahhhh.... the life of a Mississippi State Bulldog Fan. Sigh.