Women's bb team up to #5 in coaches poll. What Vic has done this season is

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

It you really need me to spell out the difference in the two, then here goes.

First, our women's team, while young, will still be top 10 in the country after a loss. Our men's team, while 'young', is fighting to try to make the NCAA Tournament.

Second, our women's coach has made two national championship games in the last 3 years with this program. Doubting or questioning him seems extremely asinine. The same is not true of our men's coach. He has had success in the past, but it has been a long time, and he hasn't done it here.

Third, as I talked about in my last post, youth in the two sports isn't equivalent. 4 of our top 7 men's players are in their 1st or 2nd year (3 of those in their 2nd). The same is true of 6 of UK's top 8 players; 4 of LSU's top 5 players; 4 of OM's top 6 contributors; and 2 of Bama's top 3, 3 of their top 7. Auburn is a veteran team, but it's not like it's any sort of anomaly among our competition here. In women's basketball, that UK team we just lost to has 1 such player in their top 5 contributors and 2 in their top 8. SC is also a young team, but that's been noted by me numerous times. Our competition there tends to be older on average, yet we are even younger there than our men's team, not to mention that our players there will stick around longer than our men's team.

So our men's team is not as young relative to its competition or relative to how long they'll stick around. And the women's team is much better relative to its competition and with a coach who should be questioned less. How could someone look at these two teams and think they should be viewed similarly? One is worlds better right now and is far more likely to continue improving over the next couple years.

I?ll address these one by one.

First, the girls are good and I?m glad they are good but there is an INCREDIBLE gap in parity between the men?s and women?s game. Any given year for the women there are probably 6 teams that have a legitimate shot at winning the title- some years less than that. This is evident when looking back at women?s NCAA champions over the last 30 years. A 1 or 2 seed wins it. No exceptions. For the men there are probably about 30 teams that can legitimately win if they get hit at the right time. See Auburn last season.

The criticism of Vic was obviously sarcasm. I was just mimicking what people spew on this board about Howland after any men?s loss, and sometimes even wins too.

Lastly your estimate in the men?s game being much younger than the women?s game may be slightly true but you are grossly overestimating that gap. There are 347 division one basketball teams with 13 scholarship players per team. There are 60 NBA draft picks consisting of both college players and international players. So every year the NBA draft depletes around 1% of college talent if all picks are out of American colleges. That?s not nearly as drastic at lowering the age of college as you make it out to be. The teams that have the big age gaps are the elite programs like UK,UNC,Kansas, Duke etc. We will never be these teams. Your argument really doesn?t hold water.

[smootness]

I?ll address these one by one.

First, the girls are good and I?m glad they are good but there is an INCREDIBLE gap in parity between the men?s and women?s game. Any given year for the women there are probably 6 teams that have a legitimate shot at winning the title- some years less than that. This is evident when looking back at women?s NCAA champions over the last 30 years. A 1 or 2 seed wins it. No exceptions. For the men there are probably about 30 teams that can legitimately win if they get hit at the right time. See Auburn last season.

The criticism of Vic was obviously sarcasm. I was just mimicking what people spew on this board about Howland after any men?s loss, and sometimes even wins too.

Lastly your estimate in the men?s game being much younger than the women?s game may be slightly true but you are grossly overestimating that gap. There are 347 division one basketball teams with 13 scholarship players per team. There are 60 NBA draft picks consisting of both college players and international players. So every year the NBA draft depletes around 1% of college talent if all picks are out of American colleges. That?s not nearly as drastic at lowering the age of college as you make it out to be. The teams that have the big age gaps are the elite programs like UK,UNC,Kansas, Duke etc. We will never be these teams. Your argument really doesn?t hold water.

Obviously most of those 347 schools don't have to worry about the early entrants hardly ever. We compete with schools who do. And last year, there were 100 early entrants who did not withdraw. We saw it with Lamar Peters. You're not just dealing with kids who are drafted, you're dealing with a good bit more who are also just leaving school regardless of whether they're drafted or not. We may not be the teams who are losing a bunch of kids to the draft, but we are competing against at least some of them. And we see it this year - when we do get an elite talent, we won't have them long. Without Perry this year, we are garbage. Well, he probably won't be around next year. That consideration is involved in any analysis of this year's team. (ETA - looked it up, and the SEC had 14 of them, only 3 of whom were from Kentucky. It absolutely impacts our league.)

And yes, obviously the men's game and women's game are different. But I'm not sure how that changes this discussion. You could use it as an even further argument to Schaefer's greatness because he has broken that barrier and put us among the very few in the women's game. Tell me the last time our men's team had any sort of real, legitimate chance to make a run.

The differences are clear. So when people talk about our women's team being young, they're right, and that has a big impact. The reason they don't focus on that as much with our men's team (and some have brought it up, btw) is because that is not a reason for as much optimism there, for a bunch of different reasons.

[somebodyshotmypaw]

Lastly your estimate in the men?s game being much younger than the women?s game may be slightly true but you are grossly overestimating that gap. There are 347 division one basketball teams with 13 scholarship players per team. There are 60 NBA draft picks consisting of both college players and international players. So every year the NBA draft depletes around 1% of college talent if all picks are out of American colleges. That?s not nearly as drastic at lowering the age of college as you make it out to be. The teams that have the big age gaps are the elite programs like UK,UNC,Kansas, Duke etc. We will never be these teams. Your argument really doesn?t hold water.

My argument does hold water. I never said we would be Duke or Kentucky. What I am saying is that if Duke starts 5 true freshmen McDonalds AA, then they are clearly a very young team. However, they will never become a veteran team, because those 5 players will skip to the NBA before they can become a veteran team. However, if UConn Women start 5 true freshmen McDonalds AA, then they are also a very young team. However, they will have a chance to become a veteran team as those players age, because they don't leave early.

So Rickea Jackson has a chance to be a junior or senior star. Zion Williamson was never going to be a junior or senior star.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

This is such a dumb stance ari and Bruce are taking.

What matters isnt the LITERAL AGE of the players, what matters for how "young" the team is is how much longer they will be here.

Perry is a So, but hes not going to be here next year. A womens BB player that's a Jr will be here next year.

This isnt a complicated thing to understand. It like saying a JuCo team of all Sophomores is as "young" as a State team of So would be...

And ari, when Howland gets us to 4 straight sweet 16s with 2 national championship appearances THEN you can use bad games by Vics teams to excuse the bad play of Howlands. But nobody would be upset by a bad mens loss at that point.

Saying "our women played bad vs an inferior team yet you dont freak out like you when the mens teams play bad" is like saying moorhead deserved another year because we gave Mullen another one after '16. Mullen had proved himself, Moorhead had not.

Bruce, all you're doing is intentionally misconstruing others arguments and making logical leaps of your own. Debate honestly or not at all

[Ari Gold]

Well done Bruce .. Well done.

[99jc]

I started this thread and will now end it."....Vic is the best coach in any sport in MSU history. End of story!

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

This is such a dumb stance ari and Bruce are taking.

What matters isnt the LITERAL AGE of the players, what matters for how "young" the team is is how much longer they will be here.

Perry is a So, but hes not going to be here next year. A womens BB player that's a Jr will be here next year.

This isnt a complicated thing to understand. It like saying a JuCo team of all Sophomores is as "young" as a State team of So would be...

And ari, when Howland gets us to 4 straight sweet 16s with 2 national championship appearances THEN you can use bad games by Vics teams to excuse the bad play of Howlands. But nobody would be upset by a bad mens loss at that point.

Saying "our women played bad vs an inferior team yet you dont freak out like you when the mens teams play bad" is like saying moorhead deserved another year because we gave Mullen another one after '16. Mullen had proved himself, Moorhead had not.

Bruce, all you're doing is intentionally misconstruing others arguments and making logical leaps of your own. Debate honestly or not at all

There is nothing dishonest about what I am writing. I am simply pointing out the the double standards of this board when comparing the same flaws between the men's and women's basketball teams.

It's perfectly accepted to say the women are young as an excuse when they lose to an inferior team, but saying the same thing about the men is apparently absurd.

[smootness]

There is nothing dishonest about what I am writing. I am simply pointing out the the double standards of this board when comparing the same flaws between the men's and women's basketball teams.

It's perfectly accepted to say the women are young as an excuse when they lose to an inferior team, but saying the same thing about the men is apparently absurd.

It's been explained why this happens. If you don't understand it, fine. But there is a perfectly acceptable explanation for it.

[THE Bruce Dickinson]

It's been explained why this happens. If you don't understand it, fine. But there is a perfectly acceptable explanation for it.

The explanation is completely flawed and I showed that. The real explanation is that our fans give the women a pass, and always shit on the men's team.

[smootness]

The inferior team on the women's side was ranked 18th. That's all you need to know. That's why they're given a 'pass'.

If our men's team was ranked 6th, I would agree it would be insane to criticize them much.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

There is nothing dishonest about what I am writing. I am simply pointing out the the double standards of this board when comparing the same flaws between the men's and women's basketball teams.

It's perfectly accepted to say the women are young as an excuse when they lose to an inferior team, but saying the same thing about the men is apparently absurd.

1) the womens team has earned the benefit of the doubt. Mens team hasnt earned shit.

2) womens team lost to a team ranked 12 spots lower than them and routinely competes with the top teams in the country. Mens team loses to teams who are ranked farther away than that, and never gets any major upsets. Of course people dont hold a loss against the women like they do the men, the 2 situations are completely different.

3) womens team is younger than the mens. It just is. Men will get 3 more from Stuart, 3 more from Molinar, 1 more from Ado, maybe 1 more from Nick, Maybe 1 more from Woodard, 0 more from Perry. The mens team already had more game experience than the womens does too.

[timotheus]

Vic has a record of having players improve as they play and mature over their career. To me, this is the biggest indicator of the disparity between the men's and women's basketball programs in Starkville.