BTO’s Mississippi State Postgame Report

#26
#26
cncchris33 said:
FWIW, 2 of the 3 ESPN analysts who picked Tennessee for the F4 still kept them in their F4 in their mid-season updates. And the third said he struggled to leave them out.

This year, as much as any, may be defined by matchups. If we get seeded in a region with a dominant big man, we may not reach that goal of a F4 just because we don't match up well in that one aspect. We've yet to figure out how to defend/exploit that, so we have to figure it out in the next two months or come to grips with the idea that it could seal our fate.
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The pieces are there for sure. After seeing how affective the press was in the 2nd half I'd love to see us use that way more than we have so far. Even if it does nothing but cause teams to get into their O 7-10 seconds late it would be seconds our bigs aren't fighting for position. And we have the depth to give breathers for our main 7-8 guys. But if we aren't going to play the youngsters I doubt we see much more of it than we did last night.

I also wonder where our help side defense has been at times this year. Typically don't see Rick Barnes coached teams give up over the top lobs with zero backside help. Hopefully they clean that up as well.
 
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#28
#28
bleedingTNorange said:
Seton Hall is #68 on KenPom, their other loss is to #19 Kansas. We have losses to #3, #10, #19 & #24….both teams not having lost at home. They gave 1 Top 20 KP win, we have 2. Not disputing that they’re a good team, I just find the overlooking of their resume when comparing it to ours a bit ironic.
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I'm not comparing their resume to anyone, just stating based on it I could see people making the claim they're a "great" team...I am not one of those people as I already said as of today I don't think any team has shown they are truly great just yet.
 
#29
#29
joevols89 said:
Well they don’t look it imo. Maybe he’s bigger than what he’s listed. Looks to have a lot more bulk in the lower half which would help getting backed down.
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I can agree with that. Jonas has been in the weight program going on 3 years now. I would think he’s stronger than JP, but that might not be the case.
 
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#30
#30
bleedingTNorange said:
I’ll actually say defense was a bigger reason we lost that game than offense
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Scovi and Gainey are Ice cold rn. Along with JJJ, those three went 2-17. Outside of Zeigler, didn't we start 0-10 from 3? Knecht had 2 points in first half. We dug a hole, no amount of defense or 2nd half Knecht could fix. Like UNC game.
 
#31
#31
This team has all the components necessary to make a big run but they can't continue to shoot so poorly in the 1st 10 minutes. They were like 1 of 18 against Ole Miss and 1 of 14 against MSU, and they were mostly uncontested shots. The thing that really stood out was how badly they were missing them. If they had gone 4 of 14 last night they would have won by 10 points and their big man would have been less of a factor. It's clear all of the guys missing shots are great 3 point shooters which makes it more of a mystery. I was very impressed with their comeback attempt, especially the leadership from Z.
 
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#33
#33
VOLtaism said:
This team has all the components necessary to make a big run but they can't continue to shoot so poorly in the 1st 10 minutes. They were like 1 of 18 against Ole Miss and 1 of 14 against MSU, and they were mostly uncontested shots. The thing that really stood out was how badly they were missing them. If they had gone 4 of 14 last night they would have won by 10 points and their big man would have been less of a factor. It's clear all of the guys missing shots are great 3 point shooters which makes it more of a mystery. I was very impressed with their comeback attempt, especially the leadership from Z.
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I'm not sure how badly they were missing them. I counted several that were halfway down and came out. Even the announcers commented on it a couple times wondering how a shot didn't go down.
 
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#34
#34
bleedingTNorange said:
1. Tough loss, always sucks extra to fight back in a game and get all the way back and then not ultimately get the job done. Hopefully a lesson to the team about how hard you make things on yourself digging a hole like that, especially on the road in conference play, have to come out ready to play better than that. Big picture it’s not a hurting loss, but when you saw the rough first half it definitely hurts worse than it is in reality, still though, I don’t think it’s something worth freaking out over.

2. Continuing that thought, #1, #2, #3, #5 & #9 have all lost on the road to unranked teams in the last 2 days…this is college basketball, it happens, we aren’t any different than the other top teams in the country. Does it suck still, absolutely, especially when you consider those losses around us and how we could’ve benefited from not joining that group, but again that is college basketball…losses to unranked teams, especially on the road in conference play will happen. Add to that it was a Q1 game for us and we still are 1 of few teams that can say their only losses are of the Q1 variety.

3. As has been mentioned both on the board and from media members, and Barnes postgame as well, there’s an alarming trend in our losses…the opposing team has a very good big man and that causes us serious issues on both ends. Now I could make a case that we’ve likely played 4 of the top 10 big men in the country to this point so yes, they are very good players, but at the same time it worries you about potentially drawing a dominant big man in the dance, definitely something to watch imo. Now with that said you’d rather find these things out now and learn those lessons now than in March, so we’ve got a chance to correct some things. While obviously Aidoo & Awaka being better would help, something I would consider is some minutes for JJJ at the 5. Our uptempo and pressing was effective and could’ve been more so with that lineup, Tolu Smith was easily getting winded and him having to chase around JJJ on the opposing end would’ve only made it worse on him. Sure you’re giving up something on the defensive end but we were already getting killed there, couldn’t be much worse, double him with smaller guys on the catch and then rotate with your all guard lineup if he kicks out for 3. Again it’s not something you can probably do for 40 minutes, but I would’ve liked to see them try it and will be curious if it’s a move going forward…look at FDU against Purdue last year, super small and yea they gave up some Edey dunks, but they also caused him some major issues.

4. Great to see Dalton Knecht looking like the version of himself we all saw early in the year and at UNC. He’s struggled against physical play and hard to think tonight wasn’t the most physical game of the year, and he shined, great to see. He also once again wanted the ball in big moments for big shots as we were mounting our comeback and that’s great to see as well. Zeigler was also dominant, he looked even better than he has all year and continues to raise his game to a level I’m not sure we’ve ever seen from him, that’s obviously a great sign. Disappointing showing from your veterans in Vescovi & JJJ, those guys can’t disappear like they did…not sure what was up with Santi but his shot looked awful after having looked like it was trending up, he needs fixed and NOW.

5. Again big picture that loss isn’t an issue, it’s when you had to watch that first half and some of the trends coming out of it that cause some concern, but again it’s about what they do from here. Kenpom had Tennessee as less than a 50% chance of winning these 2 road games, so it’s not a surprise and doesn’t really change the narrative of the season at this point if you get the win Saturday against Georgia., then it’s home for a stretch and you hope you can hold serve at home. Barttorvik still projects 23-8(13-5) so they also don’t change based off that outcome, again go and get that win on the road Saturday. We talked about trying to go 7-2 or better in the first 9, they’re 1-1, win the next one and that is still very much on the table.



GBO!!!
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Agree with your points here. I think the other part of the game that should be noted is Gainey is cooked and only played 9 minutes while Freddie played 4. I think give Freddie 5 minutes a half and live with growing pains. Mashack can have rest of Gaineys minutes.
 
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#35
#35
Chaz-Vol said:
Agree with your points here. I think the other part of the game that should be noted is Gainey is cooked and only played 9 minutes while Freddie played 4. I think give Freddie 5 minutes a half and live with growing pains. Mashack can have rest of Gaineys minutes.
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It was odd to see him given that his defense has left a lot to be desired. I thought he actually played pretty well, defensively in this one, which was encouraging.
 
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#37
#37
Orangeblooded615 said:
Scovi and Gainey are Ice cold rn. Along with JJJ, those three went 2-17. Outside of Zeigler, didn't we start 0-10 from 3? Knecht had 2 points in first half. We dug a hole, no amount of defense or 2nd half Knecht could fix. Like UNC game.
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That’s interesting. Vescovi was 6-12 from three his previous two games. Throw in last night and he’s 6-15 his last three games. Gainey is another story.
 
#45
#45
cncchris33 said:
I think the doubling the post would have been effective IF the one guy you said you couldn't leave open was Hubbard. The rest of their team was 1-8 from 3. In other words, whoever was guarding him should never leave him to double, but anyone else could and then ake someone else beat you from the perimeter. That probably ends up looking like a box-and-1 but with man principles.
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Was Hubbard a known problem leading up to this game? Would he of been a focus in our scouting report or as a freshman is he sneaking up on folks right now?
 
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#48
#48
walkenvol said:
Was Hubbard a known problem leading up to this game? Would he of been a focus in our scouting report or as a freshman is he sneaking up on folks right now?
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He's their 2nd leading scorer and leading 3-pt shooter. I'd think he and Tolu Smith would have been the primary focuses of our scout. He was a 4* kid last year and scored over 4000 points in high school.
 
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#49
#49
Barnes is such a good coach and has forgotten more basketball than all of us ever knew. He also has certain principles he lives by. The biggest one is man to man defense. That means he is very stubborn about double teaming anybody (except in the press obviously). That means his post players have to handle their man. That means deny the ball deep in the post don’t let them drive by you. Last night was the perfect example of a team with a big guy that we had no answer for one on one. Obviously, you couldn’t help off Hubbard, but they didn’t have anyone else that hurt us and they could double down and force him to give it up or beat 2. It would also stop him from dribbling all over the place like he did last night. Just look at what they did when we threw it inside. 3 guys slapping and grabbing and Aidoo ends up on the floor. We’ll learn from it and have a different plan for a team like that next time.
 
#50
#50
walkenvol said:
Was Hubbard a known problem leading up to this game? Would he of been a focus in our scouting report or as a freshman is he sneaking up on folks right now?
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He's 2nd on the team behind Tolu (just 3 games) in scoring per game, and he leads the team in 3 point attempts. He hit 5 3s, 3 in the first half and 2 in the second. We didn't really slow him down much in either half. 12 points in 1st, 13 in 2nd. Santi seemed to force him out of 3s in the second half though.

Reviewing Box Score for both halves...The biggest stat that jumps off the page to me is Bench Points. They had 33 (thanks mostly to Hubbard) and we had 4 (all from Awaka).

1st half they were hot on offense
13-26 (50%) FG
4-9 (44.44%) 3PT
5-8 (62.5%) FT

2nd half they cooled off from deep, but picked up a ton of fouls
13-26 (50%) FG
2-9 (22.22%) 3PT
14-19 (73.7%) FT

The top 3 FG% against us have all been losses, Purdue is the only loss that didn't shoot 45% FG against us (and we all know why they beat us 🦓). Our defense really was the reason we lost.

Our stats by half if anyone is curious
1st half
9-27 (33.33%) FG
2-13 (15.38%) 3PT
2-5 (40%) FT

2nd half
18-32 (56.25%) FG
6-16 (37.5%) 3PT
8-11 (72.73%) FT
 
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