I swear, games like tonight.....

[War Machine Dawg]

are the reason I can never seem to make myself regard Stans as anything more than an average coach. I'll be the first to say he's one hell of a recruiter and brings in plenty of talent. I understand the argument about his overall record, and in some respects agree with it. But ultimately, there are too many things that happen consistently for me to cross the line and put him in the good coach category. We consistently fall apart when the calendar turns to March. We consistently have "motion" offense that lacks motion. We consistently have a piss poor offensive attack against a zone. We consistently have poor guard play. We consistently misuse timeouts. We consistently allow the opposing team to dictate the tempo instead of dictating the tempo ourselves. We consistently have poor game plans on short preparation games. We consistently shoot free throws poorly. Bottom line, we have to improve in several of these areas, AND make a deep March run, soon, for me to be able to put Stans in the good coach category. I hope we do. But I'm at the point where I don't believe we ever will. I'm not necessarily advocating firing Stans, because I'm not sure we could do any better. I just know I'm tired of watching the same things beat us over and over and over aGAIN and aGAIN. Maybe I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I don't really care anymore. It's how I feel. Please, Stans, prove me wrong. Soon.

 

[Agentdog]

I imagine there are a lot of State fans who feel the way you do. I think you are dead on with your assessment. I don't think he should be fired. Because I could see us sliding back to the Bob Boyd days. However, even with a very talented team, I think the max Stans gets out of any team is 2nd round NCAAs. The competition just gets to good at that point and he does very little as a coach to give his talent an edge.
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[MasterDawg]

superior talent and average coaching dosen't beat average talent and superior coaching.

 

[dawgstudent]

I don't think Felton did anything special more so than us not hitting outside and going to the post.

 

[8dog]

any moron would've run a zone and tried to slow the tempo.

It wasn't as much being outcoached as it was being undercoached.

 

[War Machine Dawg]

Everyone knew UGA would zone and want a half court game to save their legs. Yet we did nothing to force the issue last night. We played a bunch of damn zone ourselves instead of our usual aggressive man-to-man. Stans has fallen in love with the zone over the last few games for some reason, and no longer plays what he coaches best - man-to-man. Why not try a token 3/4 court press? Run a half court trap? Just put some form of pressure on them on the defensive end of the floor, forcing them to use up their legs trying to score. Instead, we sat in the zone and let them save their legs. We also let them make it a half court game on offense. We have the athletes to get up and down the floor, run, and play in transition. Yet we only did that a handful of times. That was the biggest change I wanted to last night's game. Push the pace offensively and make them run, get back, use up their legs on D. As you said, last night wasn't being out-coached by a great job from Felton. It was simply us being under-coached. Like I said, I think we should keep Stans as I don't believe we can do any better, but when the calendar flips to March, his coaching ability gets exposed. At some point, someone (read: Greg Byrne) needs to have a sit down with him and force him to hire an experienced X's & O's tactician to help him with game planning and floor decisions.

 

[vandaldawg]

I just can't agree more. You really said it all. And I generally like Stans too. But its obvious he has major flaws, and if you want to improve yourself, you work at correcting them. He really could be better by fixing some of those things. What's stopping him? EGO. He needs to take a hard look at himself and get over that ****.

If I start into all the obvious coaching mistakes that even a ten year old girl would have made, I'll be here all day. I'm really afraid to get started on the list.

Just unreal. I can't remember a time when MSU had it served up on a silver platter like this, and absolutely had to WORK HARD AT SUCKING THAT BAD to f it up. I mean, it was almost cosmic. The original circumstances, the foul trouble, the UGA missed freethrows - they practically begged us to win that game and we couldn't get it done. Absolutely did everything we could to lose. Just 17ing unreal. I'm still livid.

 

[DawgU]

I have to agree with your assessment. That is about as well put as any description of Stans I have heard. His 10 year record is good, but how good could we be if Stans grew as a coach and matured to the point that these weaknesses were corrected? Not all of them, just some of them. That is what frustrates me. He has not done a good job of recognizing his own weaknesses, making changes, and improving himself and this program, in my opinion. Maybe Byrne can help him see these things and help him improve.

 

[muddawgs33]

I agree about the misusing his timeouts and not getting in a transition game, but I'm not going to blame stans for last nite. We had open shots and good looks all night. We just didn't hit them. I mean Randy had basically a layup to win the game and blew it. Rhodes had a shot 2 ft from the rim and blew it and I'm not even going to talk about the missed dunk. We didn't rebound and that's not Stans fault, because that's what he prides himself on. Our guys didn't come out motivated and you could tell. I mean Randy could you please play with some $%$##%# heart? I mean you are the only guy on the team that screws up and smiles about it. Do you see Hans screwing up and smiling? Hell no. I'll be honest. I would much rather sit Randy at the end of the bench and let Ravern play. Hell at least he can shoot and I don't see him smiling when he screws up.

Like I said earlier in the year, our guys play consistently stupid. We keep teams around by shooting dumb shots and making bad passes that should've never even been attempted. I mean seriously Jamont, do you think Jarvis is going to catch a 90 mph pass from you? I mean he can barely catch the soft passes.

My only gripe with Stans is that if he wants to beat the zone, then put Gordon at the free throw line and let Randy or Ben get him the ball there so either he can shoot the jump shot or look for a pass to Rhodes or Jarvis. It's open every time and yet we never take advantage. We would rather pass the ball around till Ben or Randy get open for a 3 and brick it.

 

[War Machine Dawg]

Yeah, we had our chances to win with shots at the end. (Captain Obvious - I'll be here all day). But what most of us are upset about is that the game should never have been that close. We should never have been in the position to need a last second shot to win. In that situation, the game plan was piss poor to take advantage of everything already in our favor last night. As VandalDawg said, we had to work hard at sucking to f up that game. You talked about lack of motivation in your post. Ultimately, the responsibility for motivating players falls upon Stans. He's the head coach, he's the one giving the speeches, he's the one responsible for making sure there isn't a sense the win is inevitable, resulting in the lackadaisical effort we saw last night. Bash Randy all you want, but you're a 17ing moron if you do. It was an entire team loss last night. Randy bricked a lot of shots, but he made some big ones that kept it close. And when his shot wasn't falling, he was hustling his *** off and made several plays from a pure hustle standpoint. I don't mind he and Ben shooting, because when you're cold as a shooter, you've got to shoot your way out of it. How many times did Winsome have cold stretches in his career when he couldn't throw it in the ocean and kept shooting? I didn't hear anyone complaining then. (Not comparing Randy & Ben to Winsome, just making the point.) No, this game was lost when Rick was smiling at UGA going to UK hours earlier. He was overconfident and transferred that overconfidence to the team. Throw in the piss poor game plan, inability to attack the zone, and refusal to attack the UGA big men in foul trouble, and you get exactly what happened last night. No, ultimately, last night's loss falls squarely on Stans shoulders. As I said in the original post, it's the same song, different verse. Another March, another year, another time Stans gets exposed. I hope he'll prove me wrong. I really want him to. But I'm not sure he ever will. It's the same problems year after year, and it never changes. At some point, it's more than the players, coincidence, or whatever else people want to come up with to explain away the lack of March success. Prove me wrong, Rick. Please prove me wrong. I'm begging you.