Make no mistake, even that is understating things. Expectations were high coming into the season with most seeing a NCAA tournament bid as the minimum necessary for the season to be a success. I'm not sure why expectations were that high, my feeling was this would probably be a bubble team, maybe a 7 seed type at best. However, 7 games into the season this team is playing far worse than even I expected.
I'll tell you this, with the way they are playing now, they won't even get into the NIT. Heck they won't even sniff the NIT. I say it again for emphasis. Improvement can be made, and will have to be made if Mississippi State wants to play in any type of postseason.
I've seen three of seven games so far: against Clemson, Southern Illinois, and Miami (OH). Mississippi State looked good at times in the 2nd half against Clemson, otherwise they have been atrocious. Two and a half games of just pathetic basketball. From reports I've read, three of the four wins were equally pathetic basketball, the opponent was simply to bad to do anything about it. That is 5 and 1/2 games of bad basketball and 1 and 1/2 of good. Seven games is enough to get an idea of what is in store for the season. The early polls say, not good. The spurts of competence have been the exception rather than the rule. So what is wrong, and more importantly, how does it get fixed?
Well, the latter question I cannot begin to answer. If I could, I'd be the head coach (or at least an assistant.) I've addressed the lack of depth before in previous posts. Nobody outside of Brian Johnson is making even the smallest of contributions off the bench. That just isn't going to come close to cutting it. I don't know how this can be fixed either. Someone has to step up though.
As far as the starters go, well they are okay, but really not all that impressive. Hansbrough is playing like Slater without the good defense. I just don't know what happened to him in the offseason. All of a sudden he is playing completely out of control and making one huge mistake after another. Gordon is playing well enough but he has regressed to his turnover prone self that we saw in the first half of last year. Again, I just don't know what happened. Varnado is doing a good job in the rebounding and blocking department, otherwise....eh not so much. Rhodes is Rhodes. Finally, Stewart just looks like he has too much weight on his shoulders. This Stewart-point guard experiment just doesn't look to be working.
We're not done yet. I have never seen so many lazy passes in my life. When playing MSU you are guaranteed 3 to 5 lazy passes that result in a turnover and an easy layup. This is something that can be cleaned up and it is embarrassing that nothing has been done to address it. Too much standing around on offense, does MSU ever run an offense? Absolutely no fast break threat, a big source of points last year is now nonexistent this year, why? I could go on and on. Point is, this team is horribly flawed and has a long long way to go to be a good team. It can be turned around, but I'm not terribly optimistic to be quite honest. Missouri will be a key game to see if any progress has been made after a run of mostly cannon fodder. Sorry SE Louisiana, thats just my opinion.
