Ditch Jans....go get Pitino from St. Johns. nm

Drebin

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Stansbury was fired because he missed the tournament three years in a row with three tournament caliber rosters. We didn’t even fire him because of Sidney. If we were going to do that, we would’ve done it after 2011. But we gave him one more year with a very good roster and he failed with that team too.

Yeah Stricklin botched the subsequent coaching search and Stans was calling coaches to tell them to turn down the job. But he absolutely failed at the end of his tenure. There was no excuse for those teams to be missing the NCAAT in a bad SEC.
No, the Sydney deal was part of it for sure. That whole thing derailed Stans here and he was never going to recover from it.
 

Drebin

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Stricklin didn't botch the search. We got who we could get. Nobody wanted it because of how the firing went down,,,, AND our talent was NOT perceived to be as good as WE thought it was. I've said it before, I had really good info from more than one source about MSU basketball back then.
Well your sources were shlt.
 
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L4Dawg

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I see you didn't read my entire post.
I read it all. You
No, Stansbury got fired because he compromised himself over Syndey and ended up losing the locker room. We had a mess on our hands with players openly criticizing staff. It was impacting recruiting. It had gotten to the point of no return. He lost control of the program.

We had already fallen record wise. He had not been to the tournament for three seasons. We were a laughing stock, and he had lost the locker room. Moving on from him was 100% the right thing to do. We made a bad hire to replace him but that's a completely different issue.
You are right about the locker room, but Sydney was a later stage symptom, the CAUSES were other players, that are loved here. The bad hire was a DIRECT result of the way we fired him. We got the best guy we could.
 

Drebin

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I read it all. You

You are right about the locker room, but Sydney was a later stage symptom, the CAUSES were other players, that are loved here. The bad hire was a DIRECT result of the way we fired him. We got the best guy we could.
Not only is it factually incorrect to say that the bad hire was a result of the way we fired Stans and he was the best we could do, it is completely divorced from reality and borderline retarded. Everyone on the board is dumber for having read it.
 

BulldogBlitz

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if we ever move on from a coach because they have not won even a single game in the ncaa tournament - I'll sell sixpack to coach34**.

We crawfished into the tournament this year, and if there was a wealth of non sec teams this year, the committee could have drawn the line at us. Arkansas is playing with house money right now, the rest of us have in the bottom half have stunk up the joint.
 

L4Dawg

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Not only is it factually incorrect to say that the bad hire was a result of the way we fired Stans and he was the best we could do, it is completely divorced from reality and borderline retarded. Everyone on the board is dumber for having read it.
Not according to my main source back then. He knew exactly what was going on because he was part of the process. Guy was always absolutely spot on. We got turned down by a TON of people. You have to look at the result man. Rick Ray was an absolute nobody, and everyone involved knew that. That was all we could get. Do you for one minute think we would have hired that guy if we could have done better? They knew exactly what they were getting when they hired him.
 

theoriginalSALTYdog

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Jans is the best coach on campus.

I think the problem is that we just aren't a fun team to watch. We don't have consistent dynamic scorers. Our best scorer has to work extremely hard to get his shots. And then we've lost some games we shouldn't have and have left some opportunities on the table.

If he can get the portal haul right this go round, We'll be okay. Wanting to move on from Jans is silly. But we have to get better at evaluating portal talent - we've had some pretty big whiffs two years in a row.

Being the best coach on our campus right now ain't setting the bar too high..........
 

POTUS

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We will be better if we just focus on shooting and ditch the trap.

We relied too heavily on players who are not a threat from outside. Basketball has changed. Unless you're a 5, I don't really have a use for you if you can't shoot it a little from deep.
 

patdog

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At some point you have to experience some success. I think that's fair.

If we make it a habit of falling to the 8/9 line because we limped to the end of the season, and then make a quick exit, at some point that has to change. As expectations are met, subsequent expectations are required.
There's a fine line between demanding some success and sabotaging your program back into the dark ages. It's frustrating, but not nearly as bad as the Ray and most of the Howland years.
 
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hatfieldms

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I'm confused on why we would ditch Jans. I'm amazed at the reaction by our fanbase to a coach who is batting 1.000 on making the tournament. State has made the tournament 14 times in their history. He owns 3 of them.
Mississippi state fans are a special bunch
 

MSUDC11-2.0

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No, the Sydney deal was part of it for sure. That whole thing derailed Stans here and he was never going to recover from it.

It goes hand and hand but the worst of the Sidney drama was in 2010 and 2011, and we still gave Rick another chance after that. If he makes the tourney in 2012, even with all the drama, we don’t fire him.
 
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pseudonym

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Stricklin didn't botch the search. We got who we could get. Nobody wanted it because of how the firing went down,,,, AND our talent was NOT perceived to be as good as WE thought it was. I've said it before, I had really good info from more than one source about MSU basketball back then.
"I didn't botch the search! Some idiot botched the firing!"
 

johnson86-1

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It's typical in threads like these that words get put in peoples mouths or that original points get forgotten.

As a refresher, let me state aGAIN: I like Jans. I said he's the best coach we have on campus. My comments were not a criticism of him.

Yea, I wasn't really trying to respond to the entire thread or even necessary the main point of your post despite quoting you; I was just sort of typing out loud about the single sentence I highlighted. Namely, that Stansbury didn't choke in the tournament nearly as bad as people say because he threw away two tournament teams underachieving into a 8/9 line and then playing the ones seeds to the wire (Duke/Memphis). And this year was very much like those, except we didn't even show in the tournament that we had underachieved. We just broke at some point late in the season.

But we have to get better. Getting to the tournament is the goal until you get to the tournament, then you have a new goal. We've got to get incrementally better. And to say that we're exceeding expectations just because we got into a 68 tournament field, just like 14 other schools in our conference is a poor ol' state mentality. To believe that getting into the tournament is some huge accomplishment because we've only done it 14 times in our history is a poor ol' state mentality. If we're being honest, State should have been a 5 or 6 seed this year but they played their way down to the 8 line. Why isn't it valid to expect some accountability for that?

**** happens. It counts against him, but in the context of his entire record. He's overachieved just to get in the tournament the first year. I would say overachieved to be on the 8/9 line last year. And underachieved somewhat to fall to the 8/9 this year.

I think he was building to this year and the team just wasn't right. It sucks, but I will view it as a one off unless and until there is a pattern.
Otherwise it feels like we're celebrating the fact that we backed into the tournament.
I don't think we backed in to the tournament. We very much earned our way into the tournament, even if we fell off at the end of the year.
 

johnson86-1

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I read it all. You

You are right about the locker room, but Sydney was a later stage symptom, the CAUSES were other players, that are loved here. The bad hire was a DIRECT result of the way we fired him. We got the best guy we could.
We didn't kick him in the nuts and hit him in the face with a pie before leaving him without transportation after an away game. We hired him to another position to pad his pension for a year or two while he figured out what he wanted to do.

I'm sure people weren't fired up to take over his locker room, but there is no doubt we 17ed up the hiring. The only argument you could make for 17ng up the firing is that good ADs don't surprised by who is and is not interested when they fire a head coach because good ADs know where there is going to be interest before they pull the trigger. But there is no way that we had to go to Clemson's 2nd assistant to hire somebody. That was just somebody completely 17ing up the hire.

Also, semi-OT, Stansbury was at Western Kentucky for 7 seasons (6 with a tournament b/c of covid) and he never made it. They made it 7 times in the two decades before he got there. Then didn't make it for 6 straight tournaments and i assume he wasn't going to make it the COVID year based on his record. Then they made it again the year after he left.
 

dawgstudent

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Not according to my main source back then. He knew exactly what was going on because he was part of the process. Guy was always absolutely spot on. We got turned down by a TON of people. You have to look at the result man. Rick Ray was an absolute nobody, and everyone involved knew that. That was all we could get. Do you for one minute think we would have hired that guy if we could have done better? They knew exactly what they were getting when they hired him.
Your info matches what I heard as well. Stricklin failed in the hiring because I don't think he realized how bad our program was perceived outside. So we settled on Rick Ray. There was too much chaos and no one wanted to touch it. To me, Stricklin should have known that info before moving on from Stansbury.
 
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L4Dawg

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Your info matches what I heard as well. Stricklin failed in the hiring because I don't think he realized how bad our program was perceived outside. So we settled on Rick Ray. There was too much chaos and no one wanted to touch it. To me, Stricklin should have known that info before moving on from Stansbury.
Now this I'll absolutely agree with.
 

L4Dawg

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We didn't kick him in the nuts and hit him in the face with a pie before leaving him without transportation after an away game. We hired him to another position to pad his pension for a year or two while he figured out what he wanted to do.

I'm sure people weren't fired up to take over his locker room, but there is no doubt we 17ed up the hiring. The only argument you could make for 17ng up the firing is that good ADs don't surprised by who is and is not interested when they fire a head coach because good ADs know where there is going to be interest before they pull the trigger. But there is no way that we had to go to Clemson's 2nd assistant to hire somebody. That was just somebody completely 17ing up the hire.

Also, semi-OT, Stansbury was at Western Kentucky for 7 seasons (6 with a tournament b/c of covid) and he never made it. They made it 7 times in the two decades before he got there. Then didn't make it for 6 straight tournaments and i assume he wasn't going to make it the COVID year based on his record. Then they made it again the year after he left.
What I said was exactly what happened. He was the best we could get. What was botched was the firing, not the hiring.
 

L4Dawg

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"I didn't botch the search! Some idiot botched the firing!"
Well, that was what happened....and it's the same guy no matter what was botched. Which brings up my original point here, we never should have fired Stan's like we did.
 
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Seinfeld

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So let me ask you this - would you move on from Jans if he really never experiences tournament success....like Stansbury did? Some were ready to move on from Stansbury b/c he would never truly experience success. I just hope we learned our lesson. We are in rarified air in regards to our basketball program as it concerns appearances.
A conditional yes, and ONLY IF we had dry ink on a contract from someone of the stature of that list of guys that I just mentioned

The catastrophe with Stans was that we forced him to step down without having a plan for who was coming next. I would absolutely not consider firing Jans so that we could move on to an unproven coach or one of similar standing. This past season ended with disappointment, but getting to 3 straight NCAA tournaments is an achievement that a lot of other fanbases would love to have
 

johnson86-1

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What I said was exactly what happened. He was the best we could get. What was botched was the firing, not the hiring.
That'st just idiotic. I don't doubt loafers was incompetent enough to get surprised at a lack of interest and then panic. But we didn't have time to get turned down by the 30 to 40 coaches (probably much more than that) that should have gotten a call before Rick Ray.
 

dawgstudent

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Well, that was what happened....and it's the same guy no matter what was botched. Which brings up my original point here, we never should have fired Stan's like we did.
I think Stansbury's firing was warranted but you have to know as an AD what your options are once you fire him. So in a vacuum, yes to firing Stansbury. But firing Stansbury and ending up with Rick Ray - that's a no from me.

And that's how AD's are judged. Coaching hires and fundraising. Stricklin made up for it with bringing Howland in but we suffered for 3 years. There was instantaneous excitement when Howland was hired which included signing Malik Newman.
 

Drebin

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That'st just idiotic. I don't doubt loafers was incompetent enough to get surprised at a lack of interest and then panic. But we didn't have time to get turned down by the 30 to 40 coaches (probably much more than that) that should have gotten a call before Rick Ray.
This is closer to the truth. There was lack of interest at our price point and risk tolerance. I know folks like to whitewash how great our program was but we were in a bad place at that time. But lack of interest had more to do with our attempts to try to hire someone on the cheap. It was completely bungled by Strick. And the counter option wasn't to keep Stans. The shlt was out of the horse at that point. It was to make a better hire. And "Rick Ray is the best we could do" is just not reality.
 
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pseudonym

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I think Stansbury's firing was warranted but you have to know as an AD what your options are once you fire him. So in a vacuum, yes to firing Stansbury. But firing Stansbury and ending up with Rick Ray - that's a no from me.
You can't evaluate a firing in a vacuum. Getting rid of a coach is only as good as the replacement.

Stricklin (and all the people calling for Stansbury to be fired) should be evaluated on the outcome: Stansbury > Ray
 
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Drebin

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You can't evaluate a firing in a vacuum. Getting rid of a coach is only as good as the replacement.

Stricklin (and all the people calling for Stansbury to be fired) should be evaluated on the outcome: Stansbury > Ray
AD's should have a short list they're always operating from, and Strick either didn't have one, or it wasn't feasible. That's on him.

But doesn't change the slam dunk decision to can Stans. They are different decision points. Given where our program was trending, it's no slam dunk to say we would've been better off keeping Stans. We had become a laughing stock.
 
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dawgstudent

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As a fan - you have no idea who we could get. We just knew we had not made the tournament in 3 seasons and completely imploded to end the season.
 

IBleedMaroonDawg

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Mississippi state fans absolutely lose their minds when OM is good. If OM had an early exit or didn’t make the tournament, people would be fine.


It is not a popular opinion, but our players lost those games down the stretch. We put all of our marbles in a player who was under 6 feet tall. He might shoot great one night, he might not, but he sure as hell could not play defense against somebody who was over 6 feet tall. Nobody else stepped up every night. '

We had some good players, but they were not great.

Steve Bannon Bingo GIF
 
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pseudonym

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AD's should have a short list they're always operating from, and Strick either didn't have one, or it wasn't feasible. That's on him.

But doesn't change the slam dunk decision to can Stans. They are different decision points. Given where our program was trending, it's no slam dunk to say we would've been better off keeping Stans. We had become a laughing stock.
Do results not matter?

Last five seasons of Stansbury:
seasonoverallconferencestandingpostseason
2007–0823–1112–41st (West)NCAA Division I Round of 32
2008–0923–139–73rd (West)NCAA Division I Round of 64
2009–1024–129–7T–1st (West)NIT second round
2010–1117–149–72nd (West)
2011–1221–128–8T–6thNIT first round

First five seasons after Stansbury:
seasonoverallconferencestandingpostseason
2012–1310–224–14T–12th
2013–1414–193–1514th
2014–1513–196–12T–11th
2015-1614–177–1111th
2016-1716–166–1212th

In which of the above periods would you say we were a laughing stock?
 

pseudonym

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As a fan - you have no idea who we could get. We just knew we had not made the tournament in 3 seasons and completely imploded to end the season.
True. Some fans thought it would be easy to hire a coach at least as good as Stansbury. They were wrong.

But even those fans can see the results and realize, in hindsight, that they were wrong about wanting a coach fired.
 

Drebin

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Do results not matter?

Last five seasons of Stansbury:
seasonoverallconferencestandingpostseason
2007–0823–1112–41st (West)NCAA Division I Round of 32
2008–0923–139–73rd (West)NCAA Division I Round of 64
2009–1024–129–7T–1st (West)NIT second round
2010–1117–149–72nd (West)
2011–1221–128–8T–6thNIT first round

First five seasons after Stansbury:
seasonoverallconferencestandingpostseason
2012–1310–224–14T–12th
2013–1414–193–1514th
2014–1513–196–12T–11th
2015-1614–177–1111th
2016-1716–166–1212th

In which of the above periods would you say we were a laughing stock?
You've clearly forgotten his last three years here.
 

Drebin

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As a fan - you have no idea who we could get. We just knew we had not made the tournament in 3 seasons and completely imploded to end the season.
How is that any different than y'all, as fans, saying that Ray was the best we could do? I'll tell you how it's different....the former is common sense and the latter defies common sense.
 

pseudonym

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You've clearly forgotten his last three years here.
Do results not matter?

Last three seasons of Stansbury:
seasonoverallconferencestandingpostseason
2009–1024–129–7T–1st (West)NIT second round
2010–1117–149–72nd (West)
2011–1221–128–8T–6thNIT first round

First three seasons after Stansbury:
seasonoverallconferencestandingpostseason
2012–1310–224–14T–12th
2013–1414–193–1514th
2014–1513–196–12T–11th

In which of the above periods would you say we were a laughing stock?
 

patdog

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How is that any different than y'all, as fans, saying that Ray was the best we could do? I'll tell you how it's different....the former is common sense and the latter defies common sense.
Rick freaking Ray was NOT the best we could do. That’s ridiculous. We may have been limited in hiring a top coach, but we could have hired 1,000 coaches not as bad as Rick Ray. I will say in hindsight, I think we probably should have kept Stans for 1 more year.
 
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