Every so often we hear the old saying: “Is the glass half full or is it half empty?” Prior to the start of the season, I felt the glass was more than half full, but after the Anaheim trip, I started to wonder if maybe the glass was just half empty. Whatever Coach Stansbury did with the team this past week paid off in golden dividends. I now see the glass half full and starting to fill up. This was the overall best game we have played all season. SE LA. Is a good team. The 5-3 record can be a little deceiving because all 3 losses are to SEC schools. They lost in overtime at Bama by 2 points and then lost at LSU by 10. We beat them by 25. Our offense and defense came alive for this game. And if we keep building on this, this team is going to be good. One of the problems with our bench play, in my humble opinion, has been the bench players don’t get enough minutes when they are on the floor to get comfortable and in the flow of the game. They got good minutes yesterday and it showed. Kodi Augustus stood up and proved what he can become on this team. He shot 3 for 5, 2 of which were 3 pointers had 2 offensive and 4 defensive rebounds in 11 minutes of play. But the other bench players played well also. They didn’t hurt us and did provide some production. In fact, with about 5 minutes left in the game, we were playing all freshmen up until Rick put everyone in around the 1 minute mark.
OFFENSE B
Like most games we have played, we came out to start the first and second half a little slow, but after 3 or 4 minutes things picked up for the Dawgs. We had our best shooting percentage of the year with 15 of 31 for 48.4% in the first half, 17 of 30 for 56.7% in the second half, giving us 52.5% for the game. I’ll take that everyday of the week. Our starters had 65 points and our bench players contributed 19 points. Our starters made 4 of 10 three point attempts while our bench players made 3 of 8 giving us 38.9% for the game. But their best effort was in the team’s aggressiveness and intensity while moving the ball. They played a true inside/outside game with good ball movement. Jarvis did a great job at the high post distributing the ball and setting up picks. In this game, we didn’t take the quick shots and that helped tremendously. Yesterday, we took the game to our opponent and it paid off for us. Half of the final score for us was from points in the paint (42). To continue to be successful, we have to keep this type of game going.
DEFENSE A-
This was by far the best sustained defense we have played all year. Sure there was a little let down at the start of both halves, but it picked up quickly. The team played a smothering defense pretty much the whole way. A result of this is the fact that they held the opponents leading scorer to just 7 points which is less than half of his average. Green had been averaging 15.9 points per game while shooting 41.3% from 3 point range. Yesterday, he was 2 of 9 from the field, 0 of 4 from 3 point range and had 5 turnovers. And the list could go on and on for the way the team handled the other players. I was grinning from ear to ear over our defense when I left the Hump.
ASSIST TO TURNOVER RATIO D-
We seemed to revert back to some of our bad habits in this category. We had 10 assists as compared to 21 turnovers. The starters alone had just 7 assists with 14 turnovers. A number of the turnovers were silly mistakes by our guys with lazy passes or dribbling off the foot under the basket. Rhodes was the biggest contributor to this with no assists and 5 turnovers. Stewart was 2 and 2, while Gordon was 4 and 3. This category has to improve before we take on Miami Thursday night.
REBOUNDING A
Great effort by all in this area. We out rebounded our opponent 39 to 24. Our defensive rebounds were 26 compared to their 6 offensive rebounds. On the other side of the coin, we had 13 offensive rebounds compared to their 15 defensive rebounds. Players getting rebounds for us were both the starters and bench players. From the bench, Augustus had 6 rebounds in 11 minutes of play, Benock had 4 in 14 minutes and Bailey had 4 in 14 minutes. A plus 15 margin is something that Coach Stansbury will take in any game we play.
3 POINT SHOOTING B+
I don’t think this is too high of a grade for this category because 3 of our 7 shots were by two players off the bench. Kodi hit both of his attempts and I think he gained the confidence he has lacked earlier in the year. Overall our 3 point shooting was 7 of 18 for 38.9%. I can live with this but would love to see it get 2 to 3 percentages points better.
FREE THROW SHOOTING B
Although our overall free throw shooting wasn’t as good as it should have been, I gave this category a B because our starters were 11 for 13 for 84.6%. Our bench players pulled our overall of 68.4% for the game down on 2 for 6 at the charity stripe for 33.3%.
Bailey probably needs more work in this area than any of the other bench players because he will probably have the most opportunities at the line than the others because of his playing position.
OFFICIATING B
The officials for this game were our friend Doug Shows with Antonio Petty and Kevin Scott. Kevin probably called more fouls on us than the other two combined. However, I must say that the officials did let them play and called very few touchy fouls. Overall, a well officiated game.
OVERALL B
Although the technical score came out to 2.93 (C+), I gave the overall rating the B because I was happier about this game than any I’ve seen this year. It was not only a good 25 point win, but it went a long way in improving my confidence in this team. Along with this was the fact that the freshmen and walk on players played the last 5 minutes of the game and still outscored the opponents 8 to 6. Looking forward to the Miami game now.
PREDICTION STATE 72 MIAMI 61 -001
OFFENSE B
Like most games we have played, we came out to start the first and second half a little slow, but after 3 or 4 minutes things picked up for the Dawgs. We had our best shooting percentage of the year with 15 of 31 for 48.4% in the first half, 17 of 30 for 56.7% in the second half, giving us 52.5% for the game. I’ll take that everyday of the week. Our starters had 65 points and our bench players contributed 19 points. Our starters made 4 of 10 three point attempts while our bench players made 3 of 8 giving us 38.9% for the game. But their best effort was in the team’s aggressiveness and intensity while moving the ball. They played a true inside/outside game with good ball movement. Jarvis did a great job at the high post distributing the ball and setting up picks. In this game, we didn’t take the quick shots and that helped tremendously. Yesterday, we took the game to our opponent and it paid off for us. Half of the final score for us was from points in the paint (42). To continue to be successful, we have to keep this type of game going.
DEFENSE A-
This was by far the best sustained defense we have played all year. Sure there was a little let down at the start of both halves, but it picked up quickly. The team played a smothering defense pretty much the whole way. A result of this is the fact that they held the opponents leading scorer to just 7 points which is less than half of his average. Green had been averaging 15.9 points per game while shooting 41.3% from 3 point range. Yesterday, he was 2 of 9 from the field, 0 of 4 from 3 point range and had 5 turnovers. And the list could go on and on for the way the team handled the other players. I was grinning from ear to ear over our defense when I left the Hump.
ASSIST TO TURNOVER RATIO D-
We seemed to revert back to some of our bad habits in this category. We had 10 assists as compared to 21 turnovers. The starters alone had just 7 assists with 14 turnovers. A number of the turnovers were silly mistakes by our guys with lazy passes or dribbling off the foot under the basket. Rhodes was the biggest contributor to this with no assists and 5 turnovers. Stewart was 2 and 2, while Gordon was 4 and 3. This category has to improve before we take on Miami Thursday night.
REBOUNDING A
Great effort by all in this area. We out rebounded our opponent 39 to 24. Our defensive rebounds were 26 compared to their 6 offensive rebounds. On the other side of the coin, we had 13 offensive rebounds compared to their 15 defensive rebounds. Players getting rebounds for us were both the starters and bench players. From the bench, Augustus had 6 rebounds in 11 minutes of play, Benock had 4 in 14 minutes and Bailey had 4 in 14 minutes. A plus 15 margin is something that Coach Stansbury will take in any game we play.
3 POINT SHOOTING B+
I don’t think this is too high of a grade for this category because 3 of our 7 shots were by two players off the bench. Kodi hit both of his attempts and I think he gained the confidence he has lacked earlier in the year. Overall our 3 point shooting was 7 of 18 for 38.9%. I can live with this but would love to see it get 2 to 3 percentages points better.
FREE THROW SHOOTING B
Although our overall free throw shooting wasn’t as good as it should have been, I gave this category a B because our starters were 11 for 13 for 84.6%. Our bench players pulled our overall of 68.4% for the game down on 2 for 6 at the charity stripe for 33.3%.
Bailey probably needs more work in this area than any of the other bench players because he will probably have the most opportunities at the line than the others because of his playing position.
OFFICIATING B
The officials for this game were our friend Doug Shows with Antonio Petty and Kevin Scott. Kevin probably called more fouls on us than the other two combined. However, I must say that the officials did let them play and called very few touchy fouls. Overall, a well officiated game.
OVERALL B
Although the technical score came out to 2.93 (C+), I gave the overall rating the B because I was happier about this game than any I’ve seen this year. It was not only a good 25 point win, but it went a long way in improving my confidence in this team. Along with this was the fact that the freshmen and walk on players played the last 5 minutes of the game and still outscored the opponents 8 to 6. Looking forward to the Miami game now.
PREDICTION STATE 72 MIAMI 61 -001
On another note, the polls could have the Canes coming into Starkville as as top 25 team. They been getting votes the last couple of weeks and are 8-0. - Arliss
4 comments:
Sounds good... lets see how we do against the Canes. Hopefully we can improve in the assist to turnover category and put together a good win on Thursday.
Kyle Veazey announced on his blog that he had received an e-mail from MSU Ticket office that tickets for the Miami game are only $10! Wish I didn't have to work, I might be tempted to make the trip.
Yeah, like last year they will probably sell tickets for $10 for all the home games that take place when the students are out. They will be General Admin in the student section.
Hopefully we'll have a good crowd on hand.
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