Someone please make me feel ok about basketball going forward

[Coach34]

and Dakota wont ever take Tyler Russell's job

[Coach34]

and Girodo is not an SEC pitcher

[Coach34]

and Kaleb Eulls is not an SEC DT

[engie]

Cut Wes Rea and Hunter Renfroe!!1!1 They SUCK and can't come within 2 feet of a curve ball!!1!1

[Dawg61]

We are going to suck with Moore or with Davis and with Flat Shot or Bear so what's the difference. Atleast give the players some rest and let us get a look at different lineups. We have 11 shitty basketball players not eight. It seems like obvious favoritism to me to let Davis get 200 minutes and Moore 30. And I don't have patience for 4 year rebuilds in a sport that you can improve drastically year to year based on recruiting. If Ray is on the four year slow improvement plan he's also going to be sending out resumes after four years. I'd like him to succeed and I don't see that happening unless he gets cutthroat with the back end of his bench.

[Dawg61]

This is John Cohen all over again

Average fan logic is that there is no way we can be getting better because they see us lose. They are unable to understand how much youth kills a team.

Basketball and baseball are two completely different animals. Baseball you can't go pro till after your junior year and basketball is FILLED with transfers and one and done players. We are an SEC University and the STATE's University. We are the biggest University in MS. Rick Ray should have no problem bringing in quality highly skilled basketball players. He has an entire World to find players from. I refuse to be on some grandpa plan of watching the molasses of MSU basketball slowwwwwly improve. I am damn proud of our basketball tradition and I won't allow Scott Stricklin to shit all over that with his and only his vision of who MSU should have at the helm.

I will continue to keep high standards and pressure attached to being the HC of MSU in basketball. I feel it is the only way to ensure we won't allow our basketball program to sink into the suck abyss that is SEC basketball these days. We will stand on the same floor as Kentucky and Florida and we will look down at the rest of the sucky SEC. You can join me or you can sit back and enjoy molasses.

Lastly I didn't seek out Rick Ray to be our head coach. Ray was/is the one with the balls to tell Stricklin "I got this man". Ray promised he knew what he was doing and he had all the confidence in the world he was the right man for the job. He had no doubts he could replace the all-time winningest basketball coach in MSU history. Well I'm holding him to what he promised. If he didn't want the pressure or heat he shouldn't of sold himself as better than Rick Stansbury. I wanted Stansbury gone and I expected an improvement over him. Ray said he was. Stricklin bought it. Now prove it or let's try the hiring of the next basketball coach all over again. This time without Scott Stricklin touching it.

[JohnnyQuid]

This is my first post so I hope no hard feelings. I was a genespage reader for 12 yrs+ and actually came by this site from a post that was bashing it. All that being said:

I loved rick stansbury, he was always GREAT to me and my folks. I was a kid in middle school and he introduced me personally to jonathan bender after a game one night when he was visiting (this to me was kin to meeting an NBA superstar, obviously.). I love MSU basketballl and for about 10 yrs it was the best athletic product we had to put on the floor. There's many years between sub par football and middle of the run baseball that the stans era basketball held the shit together.

I dont blame rick ray for what he's dealing with now. Nor do i think it's Stans fault. Do i think we would have kept hood if stans was here? yes. just look at his track record, ppl say alot of bullshit after the fact. I'm not gonna play the "if if if" game, what ray has left is what he has.

In the hire as a whole - I sincerely doubt rick ray is the best basketball coach a SEC university with a history of success in basketball can hire! I stil believe there's an undisclosed story behind all of this. Maybe one day we'll all hear it.

Is this team improving? Sure, but fractionally at best. This is the worst the SEC has been in 15 yrs +, can you imagine if we were actually ina league that played the game? Put us in the ACC and see how competitive we are. Im just being realistic. Staying within 10 points of SEC teams is great until you realize they're 100+ on the RPI.

I could give a **** about the player by player improvement. Sword CANT ****ING SCORE unless he drives, or gets fouled. There's a reason why he cant penetrate anymore, and his freethrows are suspect at best anyway. Teams know, if he doesnt drive or get fouled, HE DOESNT ****ING SCORE. Not a hard defensive gameplane.

I hate the rick ray hire, and i put it on strick. I dont blame rick ray, and i wish him the best of luck. But its hard when he's set him self up with the hand he has. If he makes NIT next year, IN A WEAK AS **** SEC, miracle. my guess. ina weak SEC, we win less than 8 sec games again and miss the NIT. I myself, want a real coaching search for our mens bbball coach. A bench assistant just seems like .... needy.

[Brad Stevens]

We are going to suck with Moore or with Davis and with Flat Shot or Bear so what's the difference. Atleast give the players some rest and let us get a look at different lineups. We have 11 shitty basketball players not eight. It seems like obvious favoritism to me to let Davis get 200 minutes and Moore 30. And I don't have patience for 4 year rebuilds in a sport that you can improve drastically year to year based on recruiting. If Ray is on the four year slow improvement plan he's also going to be sending out resumes after four years. I'd like him to succeed and I don't see that happening unless he gets cutthroat with the back end of his bench.

The thing is: I have seen you talk positively about this basketball team at points this year -- even about Fred Thomas. You are so quick to change your loyalties, and that is sad. Are we close to being a national contender? No. Is the SEC a top 3 or 4 conference? No. With another year or two of experience, practice, offseason workouts, and extra bodies playing their true positions, do I think this team can be a top 5 SEC team? Yes. All I ask is that if/when we begin to beat other teams on a more consistent basis, whether we shoot the lights out of the gym or win by maximizing all the talent the good Lord has given us, that you would humbly admit you know less about the game of basketball than you used to think. I ask you humbly admit you do not know how team chemistry is formed and that throwing a bunch of new JUCOs on the court each year may not be the answer, and that patiently enduring the maturation of teenagers may not be the easiest, but may be the best way to develop a team. The term "growing pains" actually has meaning, and we are experiencing it. I hope you realize this at some point.

[engie]

This is my first post so I hope no hard feelings. I was a genespage reader for 12 yrs+ and actually came by this site from a post that was bashing it. All that being said:

I loved rick stansbury, he was always GREAT to me and my folks. I was a kid in middle school and he introduced me personally to jonathan bender after a game one night when he was visiting (this to me was kin to meeting an NBA superstar, obviously.). I love MSU basketballl and for about 10 yrs it was the best athletic product we had to put on the floor. There's many years between sub par football and middle of the run baseball that the stans era basketball held the shit together.

I dont blame rick ray for what he's dealing with now. Nor do i think it's Stans fault. Do i think we would have kept hood if stans was here? yes. just look at his track record, ppl say alot of bullshit after the fact. I'm not gonna play the "if if if" game, what ray has left is what he has.

In the hire as a whole - I sincerely doubt rick ray is the best basketball coach a SEC university with a history of success in basketball can hire! I stil believe there's an undisclosed story behind all of this. Maybe one day we'll all hear it.

Is this team improving? Sure, but fractionally at best. This is the worst the SEC has been in 15 yrs +, can you imagine if we were actually ina league that played the game? Put us in the ACC and see how competitive we are. Im just being realistic. Staying within 10 points of SEC teams is great until you realize they're 100+ on the RPI.

I could give a **** about the player by player improvement. Sword CANT ****ING SCORE unless he drives, or gets fouled. There's a reason why he cant penetrate anymore, and his freethrows are suspect at best anyway. Teams know, if he doesnt drive or get fouled, HE DOESNT ****ING SCORE. Not a hard defensive gameplane.

I hate the rick ray hire, and i put it on strick. I dont blame rick ray, and i wish him the best of luck. But its hard when he's set him self up with the hand he has. If he makes NIT next year, IN A WEAK AS **** SEC, miracle. my guess. ina weak SEC, we win less than 8 sec games again and miss the NIT. I myself, want a real coaching search for our mens bbball coach. A bench assistant just seems like .... needy.

Could have just changed the names from Stans to Polk -- I've seen this post literally 100 times before.

So, we'll throw you in the rush to judgement on the new coach -- supporter of the old coach crowd? Exactly like the majority of Genespage didn't support the Cohen hire for the first couple of years either. But I'm sure you were a renaissance man that saw the future -- since 99% of everyone claims that now. Yet there were precious few of us in reality that were constantly painted into a corner about it those first 2.5 years. How does a significant portion your group always end up supporting a coach ahead of our school -- thus making it WAY more difficult on the next guy with a divided fanbase from day 1?

"Is the team improving? Sure, but fractionally at best." --- Like Dawg61, you must not be very good at reading statistics that have been spoon fed to you either. If the team shows the same improvement from this year to next year that it's shown from last year to this year, it's the BEST field goal percentage and 3rd best MSU scoring basketball team since the beginning of the Stansbury era. If that encompasses "fractional at best" improvement to you, I'd hate to know what signifies real improvement -- but suffice to say you haven't actually seen it on one of our basketball teams in the modern era. Feel free to offer counter statistics. No one has yet. Which leads me to believe it's just a bunch of people have their panties wadded up over the losing streak and are going WAY too far to try to diminish the overall improvement that the team has actually shown on the court thusfar. Either that, or the improvement doesn't fit their agenda.

You can "not like how the hiring process went" all you want. The MAJORITY of us have been vocal about not liking how it was handled by Strick. That doesn't, however, in ANY WAY prove that he arrived at the wrong answer. We won't know the answer to that until the end of year 3 at the VERY SOONEST. But when you start defining the boundaries and limitations of the next coach based on that -- while hoping that we suck again and basically counting days until you can get rid of him -- then there's a problem.

"A bench assistant just seems like..." --- how did your faction refer to favorite in the clubhouse, Kenny Payne then?

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

Context is king, my friend. As I said, I am not comparing Davis to other point guard recruits in the country. I am comparing him to Moore which is what Dawg61 freely did. I agree that Ray hasn't brought in great talent, but any former point guard can see Jacoby has a good skill set. He just needs experience and to learn the pace of the college game. Decision-making will catch up with those things. He will never be all SEC, but my argument was that his contribution to MSU will be much higher than Moore's.

Let's not forget that while ACL surgery has come a long way, it still takes time to recover and then more time to get back into playing shape, and time to recover the feel for the game, and time for a player to trust the surgically repaired ligaments again.

We are going to suck with Moore or with Davis and with Flat Shot or Bear so what's the difference. Atleast give the players some rest and let us get a look at different lineups. We have 11 shitty basketball players not eight. It seems like obvious favoritism to me to let Davis get 200 minutes and Moore 30. And I don't have patience for 4 year rebuilds in a sport that you can improve drastically year to year based on recruiting. If Ray is on the four year slow improvement plan he's also going to be sending out resumes after four years. I'd like him to succeed and I don't see that happening unless he gets cutthroat with the back end of his bench.

Favoritism? It's favoritism to try and develop a freshman who the coach thinks can help us over the next 4 years, who is coming off major surgery and who trying to re-adjust to the game, instead of playing a 6'5" post player who mainly plays football and will never be available for an entire basketball season during the span of his MSU career? Do you even read the things you post?

ETA: I read wrong and thought you were referring to your love child, Bear Wilson, but my point really stands regardless so your forthcoming attempts to discredit me over the difference in Bear and Moor is going to look just as dumb as the rest of your posts.

[MadDawg]

Could have just changed the names from Stans to Polk -- I've seen this post literally 100 times before.

And we've all read your replies 1,000 times before. We get it. You think Ray = Cohen. And you think anyone who doesn't agree is stupid. We get it, engie. Your shit smells like ****ing roses.

[Coach34]

Oh really? Because I thought his point was to be patient and let's see what Ray does once he has his 2nd and 3rd recruiting class hit the floor

[drunkernhelldawg]

This is my first post so I hope no hard feelings. I was a genespage reader for 12 yrs+ and actually came by this site from a post that was bashing it. All that being said:

I loved rick stansbury, he was always GREAT to me and my folks. I was a kid in middle school and he introduced me personally to jonathan bender after a game one night when he was visiting (this to me was kin to meeting an NBA superstar, obviously.). I love MSU basketballl and for about 10 yrs it was the best athletic product we had to put on the floor. There's many years between sub par football and middle of the run baseball that the stans era basketball held the shit together.

I dont blame rick ray for what he's dealing with now. Nor do i think it's Stans fault. Do i think we would have kept hood if stans was here? yes. just look at his track record, ppl say alot of bullshit after the fact. I'm not gonna play the "if if if" game, what ray has left is what he has.

In the hire as a whole - I sincerely doubt rick ray is the best basketball coach a SEC university with a history of success in basketball can hire! I stil believe there's an undisclosed story behind all of this. Maybe one day we'll all hear it.

Is this team improving? Sure, but fractionally at best. This is the worst the SEC has been in 15 yrs +, can you imagine if we were actually ina league that played the game? Put us in the ACC and see how competitive we are. Im just being realistic. Staying within 10 points of SEC teams is great until you realize they're 100+ on the RPI.

I could give a **** about the player by player improvement. Sword CANT ****ING SCORE unless he drives, or gets fouled. There's a reason why he cant penetrate anymore, and his freethrows are suspect at best anyway. Teams know, if he doesnt drive or get fouled, HE DOESNT ****ING SCORE. Not a hard defensive gameplane.

I hate the rick ray hire, and i put it on strick. I dont blame rick ray, and i wish him the best of luck. But its hard when he's set him self up with the hand he has. If he makes NIT next year, IN A WEAK AS **** SEC, miracle. my guess. ina weak SEC, we win less than 8 sec games again and miss the NIT. I myself, want a real coaching search for our mens bbball coach. A bench assistant just seems like .... needy.

I think this is an exceptional post in that it defines both sides of this family feud. I don't think the problems are because of Rick Ray. He's been a positive, if anything. But when SS allowed our players and coaches to be thrown under the bus like they were, it was pretty easy for our other players and potential players to see how they could be valued by our fans and our university. I doubt Hood would have stayed with Stans either, but seeing our level of loyalty and appreciation probably made it a no brainer to get the hell out of Boardtown.

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

I think this is an exceptional post in that it defines both sides of this family feud. I don't think the problems are because of Rick Ray. He's been a positive, if anything. But when SS allowed our players and coaches to be thrown under the bus like they were, it was pretty easy for our other players and potential players to see how they could be valued by our fans and our university. I doubt Hood would have stayed with Stans either, but seeing our level of loyalty and appreciation probably made it a no brainer to get the hell out of Boardtown.

The guy went to Duke where he is receiving coaching and instruction from one of, if not the, greatest basketball coaches in history, and will be a first round selection in all likelihood this June if he chooses to head to the NBA. It was really a no brainer for him to get out regardless of who the coach is/was.

[MadDawg]

This is my first post so I hope no hard feelings. I was a genespage reader for 12 yrs+ and actually came by this site from a post that was bashing it. All that being said:

I loved rick stansbury, he was always GREAT to me and my folks. I was a kid in middle school and he introduced me personally to jonathan bender after a game one night when he was visiting (this to me was kin to meeting an NBA superstar, obviously.). I love MSU basketballl and for about 10 yrs it was the best athletic product we had to put on the floor. There's many years between sub par football and middle of the run baseball that the stans era basketball held the shit together.

I dont blame rick ray for what he's dealing with now. Nor do i think it's Stans fault. Do i think we would have kept hood if stans was here? yes. just look at his track record, ppl say alot of bullshit after the fact. I'm not gonna play the "if if if" game, what ray has left is what he has.

In the hire as a whole - I sincerely doubt rick ray is the best basketball coach a SEC university with a history of success in basketball can hire! I stil believe there's an undisclosed story behind all of this. Maybe one day we'll all hear it.

Is this team improving? Sure, but fractionally at best. This is the worst the SEC has been in 15 yrs +, can you imagine if we were actually ina league that played the game? Put us in the ACC and see how competitive we are. Im just being realistic. Staying within 10 points of SEC teams is great until you realize they're 100+ on the RPI.

I could give a **** about the player by player improvement. Sword CANT ****ING SCORE unless he drives, or gets fouled. There's a reason why he cant penetrate anymore, and his freethrows are suspect at best anyway. Teams know, if he doesnt drive or get fouled, HE DOESNT ****ING SCORE. Not a hard defensive gameplane.

I hate the rick ray hire, and i put it on strick. I dont blame rick ray, and i wish him the best of luck. But its hard when he's set him self up with the hand he has. If he makes NIT next year, IN A WEAK AS **** SEC, miracle. my guess. ina weak SEC, we win less than 8 sec games again and miss the NIT. I myself, want a real coaching search for our mens bbball coach. A bench assistant just seems like .... needy.

For the record, I think this is a great post too. Sorry to damage your ED cred, though.

[Dawg61]

Brad the players will always **** you over. Always. Dre Applewhite will "transfer" out of nowhere. Jalen Steele will be selfish and refuse to play. Wendell Lewis will continue not giving a **** about anything. Travis Daniels will not get cleared by the NCAA. Fallou Ndoye will not get cleared by the NCAA. Kristers Zeidaks will smoke weed till he's kicked off. Shaun Smith will smoke weed till he's kicked off. Rodney Hood will transfer when you need him most. Renardo Sidney will be a team killing cancer that leaves a year early. Arnett Moultrie will leave after his junior year. If you go about building your roster expecting the players to do right then you'll be left short handed every single year. Ray has also kept an open scholarship for future use only to need that player each year more than future years.

I'm trying to help Rick Ray keep his job. If he stays loyal to players that don't have the talent to be playing SEC basketball he's going to get fired. The Hump is a ghost town right now. That's not good. This is the time Ray can save it. Right now. Go get four shooters. Four guys that can shoot the lights out. If you mix that into our roster for next year we can be playing postseason basketball again. If Ray is counting on Fred, Bloodman, Dunlap and Davis to be his shooters he's in a world of hurt. If Ray is not doing everything he can to be in the NCAA tournament NEXT YEAR then I want him gone. Right now I want him gone if he's just aiming for 2017 to be the year he makes it. That's the urgency I want to see from my coach. How would Ray react knowing he only has next season to get into the NCAA tournament? Make it or you're fired? How loyal would he be to the players taking up roster spots that aren't very good? So why does he feel he has that sense of security right now that he can keep on the molasses train to victory?

I'm judging Ray right now vs Bruce Pearl. Pearl won't be on some 4 year plan to get into the tournament. He'll have the Hump filled next year and he will bring in talented players. SEC players that get the fan base excited to come see MSU basketball again. Pearl's show cause is up in August. Show me why MSU shouldn't hire him and should keep on keeping on with the Ray Train of Molasses.

If you go about building your roster slowly and trying to form team chemistry through years of enduring the maturation of teenagers then just know that at the end what is waiting for you is not some great prize it's a pink slip cause ya got fired.

[thf24]

And we've all read your replies 1,000 times before. We get it. You think Ray = Cohen. And you think anyone who doesn't agree is stupid. We get it, engie. Your shit smells like ****ing roses.

His point is not Ray=Cohen. It's that less than two years in is way too early to pass judgement on the basketball coaching change, just like it was with the baseball coaching change. And it IS stupid to do so. It would be different if we were a nationally prestigious program bringing in an elite coach, a la UK and Calipari. But we're not, contrary to what half our fanbase thinks. I don't know where this idea that any coach worth a damn should be able to right any program within a year came from. As I've already said in this thread, it was going to take three or four years no matter who we brought in, barring a home run hire that would have been a long shot under the best of circumstances, let alone the shape our program was left in.

[Dawg61]

Engie I think you should put down the statistics and actually WATCH the team play basketball. If you can stand it. Your stats are ****ed anyways. We were brutally awful shooting the basketball last year to the tune of 40% fg and 28% 3s and yes we have improved but ****ing Christ man we were ranked like 310th in the nation in shooting last year and we are ranked 171st this year does not mean we'll be ranked 30th in the nation in shooting next year. The fact you're even trying to imply that shocks me man. Come on man you're better than that. The first gains from hell will always be the highest. You can't keep improving at the same rate. It's like impossible brother. Math and shit.

[Brad Stevens]

Brad the players will always **** you over. Always. Dre Applewhite will "transfer" out of nowhere. Jalen Steele will be selfish and refuse to play. Wendell Lewis will continue not giving a **** about anything. Travis Daniels will not get cleared by the NCAA. Fallou Ndoye will not get cleared by the NCAA. Kristers Zeidaks will smoke weed till he's kicked off. Shaun Smith will smoke weed till he's kicked off. Rodney Hood will transfer when you need him most. Renardo Sidney will be a team killing cancer that leaves a year early. Arnett Moultrie will leave after his junior year. If you go about building your roster expecting the players to do right then you'll be left short handed every single year. Ray has also kept an open scholarship for future use only to need that player each year more than future years.

I'm trying to help Rick Ray keep his job. If he stays loyal to players that don't have the talent to be playing SEC basketball he's going to get fired. The Hump is a ghost town right now. That's not good. This is the time Ray can save it. Right now. Go get four shooters. Four guys that can shoot the lights out. If you mix that into our roster for next year we can be playing postseason basketball again. If Ray is counting on Fred, Bloodman, Dunlap and Davis to be his shooters he's in a world of hurt. If Ray is not doing everything he can to be in the NCAA tournament NEXT YEAR then I want him gone. Right now I want him gone if he's just aiming for 2017 to be the year he makes it. That's the urgency I want to see from my coach. How would Ray react knowing he only has next season to get into the NCAA tournament? Make it or you're fired? How loyal would he be to the players taking up roster spots that aren't very good? So why does he feel he has that sense of security right now that he can keep on the molasses train to victory?

I'm judging Ray right now vs Bruce Pearl. Pearl won't be on some 4 year plan to get into the tournament. He'll have the Hump filled next year and he will bring in talented players. SEC players that get the fan base excited to come see MSU basketball again. Pearl's show cause is up in August. Show me why MSU shouldn't hire him and should keep on keeping on with the Ray Train of Molasses.

If you go about building your roster slowly and trying to form team chemistry through years of enduring the maturation of teenagers then just know that at the end what is waiting for you is not some great prize it's a pink slip cause ya got fired.

Goodness. You mentioned every transfer, but left off every player that stayed. You obviously haven't seen Dunlap play. That guy can shoot from real deep. He is just shorter than an average 2 guard. IJ can shoot, but he is shorter than an average 1 guard. Davis can shoot, he just doesn't have great decision making at this point. The one thing you have correct is that Bloodman can't shoot. Thankfully, he is pretty good from the free throw line, though.

The most fundamental thing we disagree on is that a quick fix does not equal the right fix. Ray may very well not pan out, but I'm willing to give the man a shot.

[tcdog70]

This is my first post so I hope no hard feelings. I was a genespage reader for 12 yrs+ and actually came by this site from a post that was bashing it. All that being said:

I loved rick stansbury, he was always GREAT to me and my folks. I was a kid in middle school and he introduced me personally to jonathan bender after a game one night when he was visiting (this to me was kin to meeting an NBA superstar, obviously.). I love MSU basketballl and for about 10 yrs it was the best athletic product we had to put on the floor. There's many years between sub par football and middle of the run baseball that the stans era basketball held the shit together.

I dont blame rick ray for what he's dealing with now. Nor do i think it's Stans fault. Do i think we would have kept hood if stans was here? yes. just look at his track record, ppl say alot of bullshit after the fact. I'm not gonna play the "if if if" game, what ray has left is what he has.

In the hire as a whole - I sincerely doubt rick ray is the best basketball coach a SEC university with a history of success in basketball can hire! I stil believe there's an undisclosed story behind all of this. Maybe one day we'll all hear it.

Is this team improving? Sure, but fractionally at best. This is the worst the SEC has been in 15 yrs +, can you imagine if we were actually ina league that played the game? Put us in the ACC and see how competitive we are. Im just being realistic. Staying within 10 points of SEC teams is great until you realize they're 100+ on the RPI.

I could give a **** about the player by player improvement. Sword CANT ****ING SCORE unless he drives, or gets fouled. There's a reason why he cant penetrate anymore, and his freethrows are suspect at best anyway. Teams know, if he doesnt drive or get fouled, HE DOESNT ****ING SCORE. Not a hard defensive gameplane.

I hate the rick ray hire, and i put it on strick. I dont blame rick ray, and i wish him the best of luck. But its hard when he's set him self up with the hand he has. If he makes NIT next year, IN A WEAK AS **** SEC, miracle. my guess. ina weak SEC, we win less than 8 sec games again and miss the NIT. I myself, want a real coaching search for our mens bbball coach. A bench assistant just seems like .... needy.

Great 1st Post. You are seeing it just the way it is. Hell, I wish Rick Ray was the Second Coming Henry Iba or Frank McGuire, but He has done nothing to make me believe he can succeed i The SEC. Please quit with the John Cohen comparisons. The only thing that will help Him is to recruit some players with skills, So far after 2 years he has Ready to show for His efforts. Sure He has some more coming, But for Now Stansbury's players are the reason He is having any success. If USM can be 21-3 with half their team JUCO's (no players from Ms) then Why can't MSU do it.