Kegler

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Brooks wasn't going to get that many minutes this year to matter that much of what Kegler was going to do. We still have Holman and Feazell who will eat those minutes at the four. He was still going to get as many minutes as he wanted to at the three but he was going to have to play the four if we went to a smaller lineup anyway. Now, he wasn't going to be the top offensive priority on this team or even the second option on this team. He was going to have to improve his game and not hang out on the perimeter but drive to the basket more and draw fouls and get to the freethrow line more and expand his ways to score. He was also going to have to majorly improve his defense and rebounding. Only getting five rebounds a game at 6'7" and 230 is just wrong. He should have been able to get 7-8. Those 9.6 ppg should have been upwards of 11-12 as well for his size if he expanded his ways to score. He didn't have a single 20+ point game the whole year and he was supposed to be this great scorer. To me, he was one of the more disappointing players we had last year with the potential he had. I do agree with Coach Howland I think this move will be addition by subtraction because hungrier players who want to be here will now get that chance instead of the minute sink that was Kegler.

This isn't program crippling but Mario would've helped us this year.

[Political Hack]

Looks like Tarzan and plays like Jane. He understands where he was on our roster and that he'll never push through to be "the guy". He'd be in Starkville until he was a Sr and probably then still struggle to make the league. That's hard to accept as a player. I wish him luck.

[MarketingBully]

This isn't program crippling but Mario would've helped us this year.

It depends. Mario would have helped us if he improved his game in the areas I talked about, all of a sudden became a team player, and changed his attitude 180 degrees but what were the chances of that happening? It's obvious that our top scorers for this team are Q, Peters, Nick W, and Tyson Carter. Could Kegler have adapted and swallowed his pride enough to be the fifth or sixth option on offense? We have quite a few talented scorers on this team already. What we need are players willing to defend and rebound. Adding players like Ado and giving more minutes to Xavian Stapleton and Eli Wright should help us improve in our deficient areas. That is why I say addition by subtraction.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

It depends. Mario would have helped us if he improved his game in the areas I talked about, all of a sudden became a team player, and changed his attitude 180 degrees but what were the chances of that happening? It's obvious that our top scorers for this team are Q, Peters, Nick W, and Tyson Carter. Could Kegler have adapted and swallowed his pride enough to be the fifth or sixth option on offense? We have quite a few talented scorers on this team already. What we need are players willing to defend and rebound. Adding players like Ado and giving more minutes to Xavian Stapleton and Eli Wright should help us improve in our deficient areas. That is why I say addition by subtraction.

Q & Lamar yes they are our top scorers but to put Nick ahead of Mario is a little premature. Also you say Mario needs to improve his game but list Tyson as a top scoring option over him when right now he's mainly a spot up shooter? His game has to expand too. We have quite a few guys who were known as scorers in HS but only 2 have proven that on the college level so far. Mario avg basically double figures & it's not a stretch to think he would've avg 12-14 this year with a year under his belt & a little better shot selection. Mario avg 5.5reb/game you say he should avg 7-8. I disagree. You think he should avg just as many rebs as Bam, Robert Williams, Tyler Davis, and Moses Kinglsey? I don't. Now Herard & Holman yes. Can Xay & Eli pick up the slack? They probably can but they have to show it 1st. Again this isn't some season collapsing loss but you do this all the time. Over estimate kids coming in & then downplay kids when they leave or don't work out. Mario is a very solid player & would've helped this year.

[Dawg61]

Mitch Storm shot 49% from 3 last year. Is he a great athlete like Kegler? No. Is he going to be a team player and not pout or expect MSU basketball to revolve around him? Yup. I am more than happy with our new addition and our subtraction this offseason. Good job Howland!!

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Mitch Storm shot 49% from 3 last year. Is he a great athlete like Kegler? No. Is he going to be a team player and not pout or expect MSU basketball to revolve around him? Yup. I am more than happy with our new addition and our subtraction this offseason. Good job Howland!!

It's hard to tell with you sometime but are you serious about this kid or just joking & love his name?

[MarketingBully]

Q & Lamar yes they are our top scorers but to put Nick ahead of Mario is a little premature. Also you say Mario needs to improve his game but list Tyson as a top scoring option over him when right now he's mainly a spot up shooter? His game has to expand too. We have quite a few guys who were known as scorers in HS but only 2 have proven that on the college level so far. Mario avg basically double figures & it's not a stretch to think he would've avg 12-14 this year with a year under his belt & a little better shot selection. Mario avg 5.5reb/game you say he should avg 7-8. I disagree. You think he should avg just as many rebs as Bam, Robert Williams, Tyler Davis, and Moses Kinglsey? I don't. Now Herard & Holman yes. Can Xay & Eli pick up the slack? They probably can but they have to show it 1st. Again this isn't some season collapsing loss but you do this all the time. Over estimate kids coming in & then downplay kids when they leave or don't work out. Mario is a very solid player & would've helped this year.

Tyson Carter at least had a 20+ point game in college and if he was given the minutes that Kegler got would have averaged more then 9.5 ppg. He also showed quite a bit of promise down the stretch and didn't fade like Kegler did. Kegler had the second most minutes and took the second most shots of anyone on the team and only averaged 9.5 ppg. He was 6'7 and 230 and you are okay with him averaging 5.5 rebounds? He basically wanted to be a guard but the problem with that was his 38 assists and 60 turnovers. Would he have improved? Sure, but I don't think he would have improved enough to justify the minutes and shots he took. I also think removing his me first attitude in the locker room will definitely help with team chemistry.

[Dawg-gone-dawgs]

Over estimate kids coming in & then downplay kids when they leave or don't work out.

It seems like this is the rule of thumb for a large part of our fanbase. Also to add when we miss on a guy. "I was never impressed with him anyway", OR "He was plan B, our staff ask him to go elsewhere so we could go after A."

[chef dixon]

Losing Kegler definitely hurts. We are going to need Eli to turn into a solid two way player for us. He's got the tools. We don't necessarily need Tyson to be a huge scorer to us. If he can get us 10-12 per game and mostly from the 3 then he's at least giving us good spacing. Anything more than that is gravy. I think from a guard position our scoring will be fine. I hope and expect for more scoring in the paint this year, but we have a ton of unknown there. Hoping Holman and Herard make a decent jump. We have a complete unknown in Ado and we tend to hype everyone before they actually play as ifyouonlyknew mentioned. Datcher + Feazell hopefully can provide at least some solid relief minutes. Who knows though, sometimes players like Datcher make bigger jumps than the ones you expect.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Tyson Carter at least had a 20+ point game in college and if he was given the minutes that Kegler got would have averaged more then 9.5 ppg. He also showed quite a bit of promise down the stretch and didn't fade like Kegler did. Kegler had the second most minutes and took the second most shots of anyone on the team and only averaged 9.5 ppg. He was 6'7 and 230 and you are okay with him averaging 5.5 rebounds? He basically wanted to be a guard but the problem with that was his 38 assists and 60 turnovers. Would he have improved? Sure, but I don't think he would have improved enough to justify the minutes and shots he took. I also think removing his me first attitude in the locker room will definitely help with team chemistry.

I love Tyson & his future but part of the reason he didn't play more minutes was because he was 1 dimensional on offense & too light on defense. Again you go to 6'7" 230 avg 5.5 boards a game. So again I ask you do you expect Mario to avg the same amount of boards as Bam, Robert Williams, Tyler Davis, & Moses Kingsley? The best bigs in the league? Those guys avg 7-8 rebs a game. So you expect that from Mario I assume you're expecting double figures from Holman & Herard. Yes Mario has to learn to take better care of the ball & make better decisions but just a little stat fact. Q, the best player on the team who has the ball a ton, had a 53A/64TO ratio. Or Xay & Eli the 2 guys who you want to take Mario minutes had a 7A/21TO & 7A/16TO ratio. So they all were turning the ball over that wasn't just a Mario problem. You can speculate the locker room chemistry but truth is all those guys liked Mario & were real tight with him so they weren't happy to see him go.

[Dawg61]

It's hard to tell with you sometime but are you serious about this kid or just joking & love his name?

Dead serious. I can not stand divas with zero basketball IQ's. That is Kegler. Mitch Storm might only play a few minutes if at all but his lack of having a cancer attitude is already a huge plus for this team. I want smart players that work hard and can SHOOT the basketball. Storm has all 3 of those qualities apparently.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Dead serious. I can not stand divas with zero basketball IQ's. That is Kegler. Mitch Storm might only play a few minutes if at all but his lack of having a cancer attitude is already a huge plus for this team. I want smart players that work hard and can SHOOT the basketball. Storm has all 3 of those qualities apparently.

I was more talking about Storm than Mario. I'm sure he'll help them in practice & know his role & be thankful to be on the team. He won't be a contributor during the games.

[Johnson85]

It depends. Mario would have helped us if he improved his game in the areas I talked about, all of a sudden became a team player, and changed his attitude 180 degrees but what were the chances of that happening? It's obvious that our top scorers for this team are Q, Peters, Nick W, and Tyson Carter. Could Kegler have adapted and swallowed his pride enough to be the fifth or sixth option on offense? We have quite a few talented scorers on this team already. What we need are players willing to defend and rebound. Adding players like Ado and giving more minutes to Xavian Stapleton and Eli Wright should help us improve in our deficient areas. That is why I say addition by subtraction.

You're off on this one. Q was going to be our primary scoring option and after that, I'm not sure we'd have a standout scoring option. We're obviously going to work the ball into the post (we did that with Herard this year, and presumably he'll improve and we'll maybe have another option in Ado). And Peters will likely be the second scorer, but I'm not sure how much of that would be a function of us running plays for him and how much of that would be a function of him havnig the ball in his hands a lot. But even if Keglar didn't improve his offensive game, he'd at worst get as many scoring opportunities as any of the players other than Q, Peters, and Herard and he also brings some rebounding and size to the table.

I hate that we lost him because it made us worse and I think he's ultimately going to find out the move wasn't good for him. If he couldn't accept being a really important starter and not the star, better for him to move on. But it still stinks for us.

[Dawg61]

I was more talking about Storm than Mario. I'm sure he'll help them in practice & know his role & be thankful to be on the team. He won't be a contributor during the games.

Any production he gives us on the court is a bonus. His good qualities will rub off on other players and he won't be all about himself. Kegler being all about Kegler hindered Spoon. They weren't working together to make the team better. It was always a competition to Kegler to be the star of the team. That battle between him and Spoon is gone now so I think it'll help Spoon play better. Storm doesn't have to contribute anything on the court for the team to already be better. He just has to have a great attitude and wear the jersey that Kegler wore and he has already made the team better imo.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Any production he gives us on the court is a bonus. His good qualities will rub off on other players and he won't be all about himself. Kegler being all about Kegler hindered Spoon. They weren't working together to make the team better. It was always a competition to Kegler to be the star of the team. That battle between him and Spoon is gone now so I think it'll help Spoon play better. Storm doesn't have to contribute anything on the court for the team to already be better. He just has to have a great attitude and wear the jersey that Kegler wore and he has already made the team better imo.

I think you're reaching with the Mario & Q competition but to each it's own.

[MarketingBully]

You're off on this one. Q was going to be our primary scoring option and after that, I'm not sure we'd have a standout scoring option. We're obviously going to work the ball into the post (we did that with Herard this year, and presumably he'll improve and we'll maybe have another option in Ado). And Peters will likely be the second scorer, but I'm not sure how much of that would be a function of us running plays for him and how much of that would be a function of him havnig the ball in his hands a lot. But even if Keglar didn't improve his offensive game, he'd at worst get as many scoring opportunities as any of the players other than Q, Peters, and Herard and he also brings some rebounding and size to the table.

I hate that we lost him because it made us worse and I think he's ultimately going to find out the move wasn't good for him. If he couldn't accept being a really important starter and not the star, better for him to move on. But it still stinks for us.

I think the scoring options go Q, Peters, and Tyson Carter as the third option. I could also see Nick Weatherspoon as the third option with Stapleton, Ado, and Holman giving us rebounding and defense. Losing Kegler does hurt our depth a little this year just because he ate 902 minutes and as stated took the second most shots of anyone on the team. Scoring isn't going to be a problem for this team. Our biggest improvement needs to be our defense and rebounding which were not Kegler's strengths.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Scoring isn't going to be a problem for this team.

I hope you're right because scoring was an issue last year. We were a below avg SEC scoring team.

[MCsMGs]

Speaking of scoring, the new rule which resets the shot clock at 20 seconds on an inbound play after a foul in the front court is gonna be a game changer. Those non shooting fouls by the defense when the clock is less than 10 seconds are gonna cause scoring to increase!

[tcdog70]

Ado, Holman and X will get the Mario minutes thus we will be better and smarter on Offense and defense with more energy The new Kid Feezel(sp) will also play-Ben says he is impressive. Mario was basically a physical specimen who played weak. Standing around jacking up 3s is not what we needed. Basketball is a sport where sometimes smarter is better than dumb talent.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

Ado, Holman and X will get the Mario minutes thus we will be better and smarter on Offense and defense with more energy The new Kid Feezel(sp) will also play-Ben says he is impressive. Mario was basically a physical specimen who played weak. Standing around jacking up 3s is not what we needed. Basketball is a sport where sometimes smarter is better than dumb talent.

I hope you're right about being smarter on offense. Ado hasn't played & Xay & Holman combined assist/turnover ratio was a combined 27/75 last year. Also there was plenty of complaining about Xay & Holman shooting too many 3's on this board.