Bulldogs Cruise Past MVSU, 82-63

In case you've been in a coma the past few days, Mississippi State lost to Arkansas 81-72 in the SEC semis and thus, not surprisingly, did not get into the NCAA tournament. They did however wind up getting a #1 seed in the NIT, and homecourt advantage up to the semifinals, and played Mississippi Valley State on Tuesday. Now I know nobody is thrilled about being in the NIT, but I think this can be a good experience for the team.

I'm not going to go into detail on this game. MVSU was just outmatched. As an example, Mississippi State had the clear size advantage in this game. Seriously, if you're smaller than MSU as a team, you're in some trouble. In any case, it wasn't expected to be a close game and it lived up to the billing despite MSU not shooting all that well. Gordon had 18 points, 9 rebounds, and 8 assists; Rhodes and Hansbrough had 21 and 15 respectively.

Bradley beat Providence in overtime, 90-78, Wednesday night and will be Miss. State's next opponent. This game will likely be much more difficult and could easily result in a MSU loss. They shoot an astounding .427 from 3pt range and have one player who is over 50% for the year. This is a guard-oriented team and like MVSU is one of the few teams Miss. St will have a size advantage over. On the season they're averaging a -7 rebounding margin, so I would expect State to control the paint but whether or not they can slow down the perimeter players will determine the winner.

How Sweet It Is

I'm not going to get a write-up of yesterday's amazing win over Kentucky to keep Mississippi State's season alive done in time. Sorry. They say a picture is worth a thousand words though so,
Words escape me.

MSU gets Arkansas today in the SEC semifinals as they were able to get by Vanderbilt. Get excited. I'm out til Monday or Tuesday.

Baseball Update

Well folks, I'll be away for the next 2-3 days and there is much that I need to catch up on so lets get to it. We'll get started with baseball. There has been six games since my first update and they haven't necessarily been all that encouraging.

3/2 Mississippi State vs. Troy: Last Friday MSU played Troy in their first game of the Cadence Bank Classic. Weatherford started and came away with the 2-1 win. Once again Weatherford looked good, striking out 7 and allowing 3 hits in 7 innings of work. That was the good. The bad is that all that good hitting in the first few games might have been a mirage. When State came up against good pitching for the first time the results, as you can tell, weren't too pretty.

3/3 Mississippi State vs. Michigan: Miss. State's first loss of the season was a 4-3 decision to Michigan. Pigott started but struggled mightily which is a tad worrisome. My gut says it was just a bad day though. He struckout 9 but allowed 9 hits and 4 runs in 8 innings. Again the bats were quieted as MSU got just 7 hits. They trailed 3-0 in the third and 4-1 in the bottom of the eighth. Two runs in the eighth cut the lead to 4-3, but MSU couldn't put anything together in the ninth and 4-3 was the final.

3/4 Mississippi State vs. Troy: MSU came away with a 12-4 victory. 11 hits, 8 RBIs, much better offensive performance but they weren't exactly facing Troy's ace. Josh Johnson was adequate as the starting pitcher, but my goodness, John Lalor is looking bad early on in the season. Gave up 5 hits and 3 runs in just 2 innings.

3/6 Mississippi State vs UAB: Well, they won 12-10. That's the good news. MSU got their scoring going again which is also good. Again, it's against weak pitching though. Show me something against tougher competition. Speaking of weak pitching. Tyler Whitney (started), Greg Houston, and Chad Crosswhite didn't exactly set the world on fire. 15 hits and 10 runs, not good.

3/7 Mississippi State vs Jacksonville St.: They won 11-9, but once again, some very suspect pitching. 14 hits and 9 runs to JSU? Come on. Jared Koon, Jesse Carver, and Ricky Bowen were responsible for this unfortunate performance. On the plus side of things, John Lalor was the bright side and maybe redeemed himself. 3 K's and 1 hit given up in 3.2 innings. A bright spot on an ugly day. Easly, Moreland, Turner and Laninfa looking like the offensive threats so far this year.

3/9 Mississippi State vs. Winthrop: The second loss of the year came at the hands of Winthrop who came from behind to win 7-6 in extra innings. Weatherford struggled allowing 9 hits and 3 runs and Crosswhite couldn't hold the lead in relief. 13 hits on the day for Winthrop. Surprising considering Weatherford started.

Bulldogs Dismantle Tide, Win West

Save for stretches at the beginning of both the first and second half, Mississippi State dominated Alabama in every phase of the game on Sunday to ultimately come away with a 91-67 win. For senior day, Rick Stansbury made a change to the starting lineup, starting senior Piotr Stelmach in place of Richard Delk. It was a nice gesture but probably was responsible for Alabama jumping out to an 8-2 lead as Stelmach simply could not keep up. After he exited the game though, it only took 3 minutes for MSU to tie the game at 10. From this point State would outscore Alabama 31-19 to take a 41-29 lead into the half. It looked like the game was had already gotten away from the Crimson Tide but to their credit they came out of the half with a 12-2 run to cut the lead to 43-41 at which point Stansbury quickly called a timeout to straighten his team out. Whatever he said worked as MSU proceeded to go on a 39-9 run which left them leading 82-50. Coach Stansbury began to call off the dogs at this point and State cruised to the 91-67 final.

This was just a marvelous performance by Mississippi State, probably the best they have played all year. Everyone played well but Ben Hansbrough and Jarvis Varnado deserve special mention. Varnado had by far his best game of the year and I would argue so did Ben. In just 10 minutes off the bench Varnado had 10 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks and 1 steal. Now that's what I call productive minutes. In regards to Hansbrough he was quite simply a wild man. He was everywhere, playing stifling defense, dishing out assists, grabbing rebounds, picking pockets, making big shots, etc. When the dust settled he found himself with 13 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 steals. Just an all around fantastic game.

Then of course the usual players also showed up big. Rhodes had 18 points and 7 boards and Reginald Delk put up 16 points even though he was 1-6 from behind the line. Richard Delk, while not doing much offensively, played tremendous defense as usual, coming up with a career high 3 blocks. Jamont Gordon had 11 points, 5 rebounds and 9 assists. Definitely not his best scoring day, but he was terrific in finding the open man and just letting the game come to him.

With the win MSU tied Ole Miss for 1st place in the West and gained a share of the division title. Tiebreakers give Miss. State the 1 seed in the SEC tournament though. They'll play the winner of Alabama vs. Kentucky on Friday. If they can play like they did Sunday, they have a good shot of making it to Sunday. That's a big if though.

Mississippi State Blows by MVSU 13-2

On Tuesday Mississippi State hosted Mississippi Valley State and had little trouble overcoming them to notch their 4th win of the season. Freshman Tyler Whitney pitched 5 innings over which he scattered 4 hits, struck out 3, and gave up one run. State continued their stellar hitting with 19 in this game. Brandon Turner led the way with 3 hits while Mitch Moreland led with this 3 RBIs. Also for the 3rd time in 4 games, Miss State had no errors.

Another game against weak competition. Once again not too much to be taken from this game aside from another strong showing offensively. Whether that will be sustained against better teams is yet to be seen. We'll get a better idea of what we have this year soon enough though. MSU will be hosting Troy (8-3) and Michigan(3-1) in the Cadence Bank Classic over the weekend. Both won their respective conferences last year and are supposed to be just as talented this season. We'll see how they do.

Oh yes, It's March

Just wanted to give a little publicity out. Card Chronicle is giving wrap-ups of the entire conference tourney picture everyday. Can't get enough of the Big South tournament? Having trouble keeping up with who won in the Horizon League last night? Obsessed with mid-majors and seriously annoyed ESPN isn't showing their quarterfinals? Then this is the place to go.

A Few Minor Changes

The domain name is going to be changing Saturday afternoon. The new one should be www.mstatecentral.blogspot.com. Bookmark it. As you might guess the name is changing to mstatecentral as well. Everything else is the same, just a little change of address.

Mississippi State Opens Season With 3-game Sweep

MSU opened the baseball season last Friday with a 3 game series against Murray State, who was 0-2 entering the weekend. Sophomore pitcher Aaron Weatherford started the first game and racked up a career high 11 strikeouts in 6 innings of work. Chad Crosswhite, Ricky Bowen, and Jesse Carver all threw pitches with Crosswhite striking out 3 of the 4 batters he faced and earning the save. Senior designated hitter Brian LaNinfa connected on 4 hits and had 4 RBIs in what was a 16 hit performance by MSU. Edward Easley, Jeff Flagg, Turner, and Sneed all had multiple hit days in the 10-5 victory.

The bats were hot again on Saturday in what would be a 13-1 victory for the Bulldogs. 22 hits was the final count with two run home runs coming from Flagg, Connor Powers, and Easley. Junior pitcher Justin Pigott got the start and went 7 innings. He struck out 4, scattered 4 hits, and allowed only one earned run. Last year he led the SEC with a 1.66 ERA and looks to be ready to keep up that pace this season. Freshman Greg Houston pitched the 8th and retired his three batters. Mitch Moreland came out for the 9th and struck out 3 while walking one.

Sunday would prove to be more difficult as Mississippi State would have to come back in order to gain the 17-9 win. Senior Josh Johnson started at pitcher and struggled mightily. He pitched just 3 innings striking out 5 but giving up 6 hits and a 4 run 3rd. John Lalor relieved him but didn't do too much better, surrendering a 3-run home run in the 4th which gave Murray State a 7-0 lead. Then the floodgates opened. The Bulldogs got 1, 3, and 3 runs in the 4th, 5th, and 6th innings respectively to tie the game at 7-7. Murray State would get 2 more runs and 4 hits in the 7th off of John Lalor and then Ricky Bowen when he came in as relief. An 8 run 7th inning sealed the game for Miss. State with Flagg bringing in the go ahead run.

To be frank, Murray State isn't all that good so don't be looking to take to much from the weekend. Preliminary reports are that hitting will be improved from last year and Mississippi State has two quality starting pitchers in Pigott and Weatherford. After those two things appear to get dicey though.

Tray Rutland Transferring

Spring practice started up on Monday for Mississippi State. You're not going to be getting extensive coverage here as basketball is what my focus is on at this time of year. If anything of note crops up though, I'll make sure to spread the word. This week the big news had nothing to do with the practices on the field. It was the announcement on Tuesday that backup QB and redshirt sophomore Tray Rutland would be transferring to another school. No real reason has been given, and probably won't be, outside of the usual coachspeak which tells us nothing. Rutland started in two games last year and played in five after Michael Henig broke his collarbone in the first game of the season. He was 20-48 for 151 yards and 4 interceptions on the season. While there is at least a fair chance he was going to end up third string this year with Josh Riddell coming in, this is still a big blow to the team. QB depth is now painfully thin again as two of the three quarterback who played last year are gone, Omarr Conner due to graduation and Tray Rutland due to transfer. That leaves MSU with arguably thinner depth than last year. Henig was the only QB on the depth chart with any experience, but they at least had the option of moving Conner from WR back to QB if needed, which it was. Riddell does have two years of JUCO experience and was very effective, but that is still a far cry from SEC football. After him is either Ty Evans or Zack Harrington, and that right there makes up all of my knowledge of those two. It's a good thing the coaching staff managed to bring in Riddell. There is a very good chance that Henig is going to be broken in half by LSU the first game of the season and I shudder to think about that depth chart without Riddell at that point.

What the Hell Happened??

I'm going to be honest with you, I have no idea how Mississippi State let this game slip away. Well I guess I do, they couldn't buy a basket. 31.7 FG% on the game and 1-15 (6.7%) from three. That is atrocious. Was Arkansas' defense just too stifling to overcome? No. There was nothing spectacular about it. MSU got plenty of open looks, and proceeded to miss all of them. Jamont Gordon and Charles Rhodes carried them with 23 and 22 respectively, while the rest of the team could only manage 13 points.

This is just so frustrating. Miss St. is better than those clowns. There is no reason they should have lost. Rebounds were basically equal, Arkansas had 9 more turnovers, MSU had 14 more points in the paint, etc. The shooting was simply atrocious and not necessarily due to taking bad shots, although Slater had a few of those as usual. This has just been such a horribly frustrating season. Far too many games have slipped away that should have been won. Mississippi State better be kicking some ass next year to make up for it.

This year isn't over yet though and amazingly enough Miss. State can still win the West. 4 teams are currently tied for 1st.......at 7-8. Yes, I'm serious. So the winner of the West is going to be 8-8 this year. That is ridiculous. The Bulldogs actually have the easiest road to get there, beat Alabama on Sunday and they will end up #1.