BillySee58

I should've been more clear. No ADDITIONAL schollies. If all 5 sign then we will have no schollies open for anyone else. You just reiterated what I said. Would it be that much more difficult to read between the lines? Sorry, I'm in a grumpy mood with our basketball fan base right now. My point was, if Norris doesn't prove to be worth the scholarship I wonder if the coaches are open to pulling it. I'm not suggesting this, just throwing it out there as a possibility. If he along with the 4 commits sign then we will have no scholarships open to get anybody else out of this recruiting class.

TJ Taylor spends a lot of his time out on the three-point arc. He is a pretty complete scorer yes, but I think on our roster he will have a lot of spot up opportunities on threes or pump fake drives to the hoop. His 3-point percentage wasn't great but he's streaky, not to mention he shot a lot of threes and might have gotten a little trigger happy at times. Not saying that won't happen once he starts playing here either. As for Wesley, I wouldn't be surprised to see him play some power forward up here, mainly by necessity if TM doesn't come back. TM is probably gone, Franklin, Niko, Patton, Holmen, basically every post we have except Coleman. Coleman will start at the 5 for us next year unless something drastic changes, but the competition at the 4 is wide open and is basically between all of our commits. People are acting like we are going to the Big East. CUSA is a nice step up from the Sun Belt, but 6'7" with his athleticism and skills, Wesley will be able to hold his own at the 4. I agree he is undersized for a 4 and his long term role with us is the 3, but he wouldn't be the only 6'7" power forward in that conference. As for Norris, I agree. With Walton's scholarship no longer open for next year in this class (as he will be redshirting and playing next year) I wonder if Norris is still being evaluated. If all 5 of our current commits sign (which to my knowledge Wesley and Friar have) then we will have no schollies open even if TM declares, since we have 4 graduating seniors.

They think he fills a need in our current recruiting class?

Considering they're all post players by nature except maybe Wesley, don't get your panties in a wad. Wesley has a really sweet outside stroke, which you can't really fix someone's shooting form at this stage in their life. He looks like our best recruit, hands down. As for shooters, yeah we could really use another one but at least we have TJ Taylor stepping in next year to help fill that void. Also, not so sure I want Soma Edo in this class. He is basically unrivaled athletically but the truth is he is a 6'5" post player and I know he's being recruited as a small forward but that's a hard transition to make if you haven't been training for it for years like Wesley has. I do agree that we could use another shooter but we have capable guys on our roster, give it time.

You are correct. As for Hood, I don't know why he was granted a waiver to play this year. http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8118407/former-mississippi-state-bulldogs-star-rodney-hood-transfer-duke-blue-devils

Worth a try right?

Tonight's loss really disgusts me just as much as any of you. I've been guilty of hyping this team up to my fellow students, friends, and family. Here is my "it's not that bad thread," which is honestly just as much for me as it is for you. During the first week of the football season the MUTS football team lost to FCS (D-1AA) Mcneese State, who hasn't even turned out to be a very good team even by FBS standards. Their fans were calling for their coach, Rick Stockstill's head on a platter. Since then they are 6-2 with a blowout win at Georgia Tech and are in position to make a bowl game and control their destiny to win the conference outright. I know a loss to a D-2 school is much more embarrassing than a loss to an FCS school, but there is no reason this year can't be a tale of two seasons for us either. I'm gonna try to wake up and find out this is a bad nightmare, but if that doesn't work I'm going to wake up in the morning with a sick feeling in my stomach but still root like hell for us on Wednesday against Lamar.

Yes, rebounding is terribly disappointing. Out-rebounded by not one, but two Division II schools.

That is exactly what I meant. I said for our 2013 and 2014 recruiting classes, not rosters. Thank you for clearing that one up and actually reading.

Dang. I wonder if he is going to take a hardship/medical redshirt this year. That would reduce our scholarships for this recruiting class by one and increase our scholarships by one for the 2014 class. Feel bad for Brandan, praying for nothing but the best for his recovery. As for the rest of the team, we NEED Patton to come back soon. Play Patton and Holmen at the 3 so Jordan Williams can play more at shooting guard. Also need Clarke to get his game going and step up. Let's see if our depth is as good as we've been touting it.

He was making a joke, a lame one mind you, alluding to Coach Mac and crew pulling our now former offensive-line commit Hunter Siddon's scholarship due to concussions, including one that has kept him out nearly the whole season.

The good news is Mac is heavily utilizing the redshirt, which can really help the developing process. Not everyone who redshirts greatly improves, see Sampson, but it certainly doesn't hurt a players development. Plus, since we don't get the 4 star metroplex players we get a lot of guys from small towns. The redshirt really helps these guys as they transition from cities of sometimes less than 5,000 people to a campus with roughly 36,000 students. I really can't wait to see what our recruiting classes will look like if and when we have a few breakthrough seasons, but yes, until then developing is of the utmost importance for our program.

Spot on. Like I've said before, people need to realize that if we get receivers that are 6'4" and up, they probably aren't very overachieving type players. If they were good skill wise and production wise, schools like UT and OU wouldn't let them slip through to us.

I agree

Uh Oh! It didn't look that bad, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt until something official comes out. This would be a huge loss, we really struggled to move the ball outside of the big plays. If you take away Byrd's 85 yarder then he had 14 carries for 31 yards. Take away Brown's 51 yarder then he had 10 carries for 16 yards (according to team website). I'm not a huge fan of "taking away" certain plays but it does show that we were not able to consistently move the ball. I don't see things getting any easier with road games at WKU and ULM coming up, especially with no Brelan and now, possibly, no Jimmerson. DT is going to have to step up, as are the defense and special teams.

Hey! I said this first! I demand credit! Kidding, very good video! Awesome play!

I'm in a rather serious mood today. Usually don't miss those.

He was a Coach Mac recruit. Mac got him right before signing day after Sampson decommited from Tulsa due to a coaching change.

I have one piece of advice to people regarding Berglund, and that is don't categorize him with other players. Don't categorize him with other players who have gotten in law trouble, other players who have transferred multiple times, etc. Let him be who he is, Brock Berglund. He's a good guy who is very driven by the opportunity God has given him. You're right, the jury is still out on Berglund but he has the potential. There is no denying his skills. You say to "don't go there" urging us not to suggest Berglund based on nothing, yet you do "go there" as for criticizing him based on nothing. The truth is, he has arm strength and athleticism that far outclasses that of Derek Thompson. This will open up the playbook greatly compared to what we have been able to run this year. The one thing Thompson has done a decent job of in his career is not turning the ball over. This means to me that we at least will have a backup that won't come in there and just lose the game for us by turning the ball over. We'll see in spring ball, but the good thing is we have options for once.

Yeah, he was thriving in pain for a while, then got up and ran off to the sideline. That's a stinger to a tee, short period of nearly unbearable pain, then it calms itself down. Usually does take a player out for the game but not much longer.

I really think it's Tony Mitchell. Last year I thought it was Alzee, but Tony's game really looks much improved on offense. There is a reason Creighton kept collapsing on Tony every time he got the ball, and it isn't just because of his pure athleticism. As for the rest of our offense, I don't know how many of you have watched the Mavericks for a little while, but when I was younger and first started watching the Mavs in 2001 Mark Pinto and Bob Ortegel used to always talk about the Mavs' big three of Nash, Finley and Dirk. I made a thread about our dynamic trio of Jones, J Will, and TM. Ortegel and Pinto had this formula that if two of the big three (Nash-Finley-Dirk) scored at least 20 points then our winning percentage was something crazy, I think it was undefeated for a while and if not it was well over .900 if I remember correctly. I know college is a different game, but I think if we have two of our big three on and the other at least impacting the game through his athleticism or passing ability we should win most or all of those games. With the foul trouble Tony and Chris got into it was hard to establish our offense and Creighton rotated very well on defense, making it hard for us to get it going. Throw in a bad game from J Will and the only member of our trio who got his numbers was TM. I really wish we had gotten Lamar to play at the preseason NIT to give us a better tune up for K State, but it is what it is. I hope Benford starts A Williams, TM, Jones, J Will, and Coleman and lets them play significant time together on the court, no matter how much we're up by. This will probably be our best line up and they need time on the court TOGETHER so they can learn to play with each other even better.

Yeah, I saw him on campus and wondered how much longer he'd be here. Unfortunately Chaz has never turned his height and athleticism into something that translates well onto the field. Too bad, wish him the best at Alcorn.

We HAVE to win the turnover battle. Kawaun Jakes (WKU's QB) and Cody Wells (ULM's QB) are not great QBs but we aren't going to out gain these teams by very much, if at all, especially with Chancellor and potentially Jim Jim out. We broke some big plays, great runs by Byrd and Brown but did you guys see the hole the line opened up on Byrd's run?! Massive. As far as moving the ball down field, we didn't do much of it. This game we just played, in particular after Byrd's run, really has me nervous. How are we going to move the ball on the road against WKU and ULM? And yes, even if we win our bowl chances aren't looking great. Arky State and MUTS are en route to pick up the league's two guaranteed bowls, and after that who knows if any other teams would get invited to a bowl. But hey, we need to focus on finishing this season strong and not worrying about things we can't control anyways.

That's another thing I love about this team, the internal competition. Benford has stated that if someone isn't on their game they're liable to get yanked. I really feel like whoever is on the court tonight is going to give their absolute best effort on both ends of the court. We have a team of guys who truly love the game and who want to be on the court.

We all love to talk about how deep our team is, how much we have returning, etc, but let's take a moment to reflect on our super trio of Jordan Williams, Tony Mitchell, and Chris Jones. The great basketball teams usually have 3 players that are looked at as "All Star" types who can carry a team in different phases of the game. Look at NBA Championship trios like Ginobili-Parker-Duncan, Bosh-Wade-James, Jordan-Pippen-Rodman, and even on the college level like 02-03 Syracuse with Anthony-McNamara-Warrick, 01-02 Maryland with Dixon-Baxter-Wilcox, and of course 05-07 Florida Gators with Noah-Brewer-Horford. Although it's a bummer that Patton is out and TJ Taylor is out for the whole season but the close games were and are going to be won with the ball in the hands of our trio. It's going to be fun to see how our other players on our stacked team such as Coleman, Alzee, and Franklin match up against another, possibly even more, stacked team but as long as they play solid basketball this year our big 3 should lead us to many, many wins. Can't wait for tonight, really looking forward to the game. Not expecting a win, but not expecting a loss either. We couldn't have asked for much better to open up the year. GMG!