BBall: Mississippi State 75, Louisiana Tech 45

Lost in all the excitement of the football teams win over Alabama, was the fact that the basketball team won their season opener over Louisiana Tech, 75-45. Now I didn't get to see the game, so any and all observations are from looking at the box score. Mississippi State Basketball has a report card of the game if you go here.


Things I liked:
-13 assists and only 4 turnovers. If this could be the type of production we get all year I would be ecstatic. I can't even remember the last time MSU had only 4 turnovers. Neither can Rick, because the 4 turnovers were the fewest by a Stansbury coached team.

-13 points, 11 rebounds, and 3 assists from Barry Stewart. Only 3 of those points came from a 3-pointer. Looks like he has expanded his game to include some mid-range shots and maybe some driving to the basket. Also, 11 rebounds? He led the team in rebounds. I never would have expected that out of Stewart.

-Gordon is still Gordon. 21 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists.

Things I disliked:
-Mississippi State got outrebounded 52-46. Louisiana Tech isn't all that big of a team, so this is an embarrassment. There is no sugar coating to be done. We know Stansbury is big on defense and rebounding, so I'm sure he has been drilling them hard this week. I'm hoping this was just a first game thing, because this team will have big problems come SEC play if this is the norm.

-I was disappointed in Varnado. He was a monster in the exhibitions, but had just 4 points and 5 rebounds against Tech. He did have 6 blocks though, so he is still swatting away everyone who comes at him. The blocks were good, but this team will need more production from him in the other areas.

-Depth/Freshman. The starters (Gordon, Hansbrough, Stewart, Rhodes, and Varnado) played pretty good. The problem is they basically did everything. The bench was essentially non-existent. Again, maybe just a first game thing and they still haven't quite got the rotation worked out. At the very least though Phil Turner and Brian Johnson will need to be able to give something to the team coming off the bench.


So, it was nice to get an easy win to start things off, but there is most definitely room for improvement. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, we should find out right away what we have with in this team. Mississippi State will play Clemson tonight on FSN South at 7pm central. This is a very big early season matchup with both teams lurking just outside of the top 25. Gary Parrish says it is the nights best game, so thats nice I guess. Come 9pm we should have a better grasp on what kind of year we're going to be looking at.