Y'all believe in this team yet?

[msstate7]

I am impressed we won tonight. Our schedule in no way got us ready to face a good team like ark, but we adjusted to their quality of play quickly.

[IMissJack]

If we could just shoot the basketball from anywhere not right under the basket we could be hell on wheels. So I believe in this team in all aspects outside of shooting the basketball.

That's where I am as well. They play good D and hustle, but shooting is very bad.

[dawgday166]

From reading previous threads about this team while not watching them at all, I thought they were horrible. I watched only the 1st half last night. The D is really good. The shooting I believe will come with time. I'm betting Howland has been really focusing on the D from the way they can play D.

D can show up every night. Even teams with good O have off nights. I don't think this team is horrible. It's not a Final Four team, but it ain't horrible either. Is it a tournament team? It might could turn out that way.

For year 3 under Howland, I think it's good progress. He has it moving in the right direction.

[MetEdDawg]

I was pleasantly surprised with our ability to score points last night after having watched our difficulties in our non conference games. Mike Anderson teams have never played amazing defense, they just play really fast. Getting 78 points while shooting 4-21 from 3 is actually pretty impressive. That's only 19%. If we just make 3 more of those per game and get to 33% from 3, we will be tough to stop.

This team isn't going to give up more than 80 points in the majority of our games. If we can get to 80 points in a game, we will most likely win because we are pretty stout defensively.

[BrunswickDawg]

The reason so many are so critical of this team is they are living in some fantasy land that the skill level and pace of the game in college basketball is going to return to the way it was in the 1990s and early 2000s. That type of basketball is gone, and it?s not coming back. And that is not an MSU thing, it?s a basketball thing. Adjust your expectations and you will enjoy this team.

[basedog]

I am impressed we won tonight. Our schedule in no way got us ready to face a good team like ark, but we adjusted to their quality of play quickly.

Winning is what got carried us to a victory last night. It's called confidence and having a very young team is important when the schedule we played.

This team will get better because of the youth and the schedule has helped.

[Liverpooldawg]

I saw some things I liked last night. There was some genuine enthusiasm on the court. That has been lacking. They played pretty good defense against a high scoring team. There was hustle on the court, getting some effort rebounds and diving to get loose balls, that sort of things. I also saw some quite troubling things. As has been pointed out the shooting isn’t good. The free throw shooting, esp at the end when it really mattered was abismal. It was a little better last night but the half court offense is still NOT good. Bottom line: We are better than we have been since Stans was canned. That isn’t debatable. It’s been so long since we had even a decent team that I wonder if we aren’t getting carried away over just that, a decent team. I’m going to wait a bit (seeing how they hold up on the road for example) before I get excited. Last night WAS a start though.

[MetEdDawg]

By the way, to add to everything, Arkansas has scored less than 83 points in a game only 3 times this year. Once to UNC, once to Houston, and once to us. All 3 losses. Defense won us that game last night because they had scored more than 90 9 times already this year.

[tcdog70]

Amazing most here find more negatives than positives after beating the #22 team in the country.
****ing amazing.

right-we are 13-1--what does it take to not get a little warm and fuzzy? We have great post defense and we have nice depth. If Carter can get his stroke going and Peters continues to shake His funk then the Spoons will lead Us. We have the X as the energizer Bunny and He picks us up with his energy. So i am fired Up-let's beat the 17 out of the dogassed Rebs.