Mississippi State basketball transfer class grade: D+
- Thread starter TheBannerM
- Start date
That's harsh. And the part about Achor "returning to his mean" when he shot 33% from deep is misleading. Yeah, he shot 33%, 45% and 33% in his 3 seasons. But he only took 12 shots his FR season and 9 his JR year. He took 62 the year he shot 45% and his career is 41%.
Stopped reading after this
But yeah, is this transfer class going to win us an SEC title? I highly doubt it, but I don’t think it’s a D+ either
But yeah, is this transfer class going to win us an SEC title? I highly doubt it, but I don’t think it’s a D+ either
How can the loss of Clary sting when he barely contributed?
But compared to the SEC where 14 of the 16 schools went dancing, it’s likely that grade in conference.
But that’s still passing.
If you think we were counting on Clary in 2025-26, you don’t follow State basketball enough to have an opinion that matters.
I don't agree with several of those grades in that article, including ours. And using Clary as a reason to downgrade us is stupid. We lost one guy who we will miss - Murphy. Kugel is easily replaceable, so is Nwoko. And everyone takes risks in the portal.
He also just cherrypicks stats and opinions on players. For example:
"Achor Achor spent most of last season hurt at Kansas State and shot just 33% from deep when he did play, a return to his mean after a 45% season the year prior."
First of all, he wasn't hurt. He left the team. Big difference. Two years ago at Samford, he shot 44% (not 45%), but he did so on 62 attempts while playing in 33 games, so about two attempts per game across a whole season. Last year he played in all of 7 games and took 9 threes, making 3. Hard to say he's lost his shot after 9 attempts in 7 games.
Compare that writeup to this.
"Dailyn Swain, who follows Sean Miller from Xavier to Texas, is special. He can guard 5 spots and made gargantuan improvements offensively as a sophomore at Xavier, improving his shooting percentages inside and outside by 10%."
Gargantuan improvements. He did go from 5 ppg to 11 ppg, so kudos to him. But to frame it as a 10% increase is both inaccurate and comical.
FR: 47-85 from two 55%; 4-26 from three so 15%
SO: 127-224 from two 57%; 7-28 from three so 25%
So the vaunted 10% increase was going from 15% to 25% from three while being essentially the same player from 2 point range. But again, they are Texas, and we are poor ol' whupped down Mississippi State, so it's never surprising to see us being **** on by some jackleg attorney who has his thought pieces published on a website like Saturday Down South.
He also just cherrypicks stats and opinions on players. For example:
"Achor Achor spent most of last season hurt at Kansas State and shot just 33% from deep when he did play, a return to his mean after a 45% season the year prior."
First of all, he wasn't hurt. He left the team. Big difference. Two years ago at Samford, he shot 44% (not 45%), but he did so on 62 attempts while playing in 33 games, so about two attempts per game across a whole season. Last year he played in all of 7 games and took 9 threes, making 3. Hard to say he's lost his shot after 9 attempts in 7 games.
Compare that writeup to this.
"Dailyn Swain, who follows Sean Miller from Xavier to Texas, is special. He can guard 5 spots and made gargantuan improvements offensively as a sophomore at Xavier, improving his shooting percentages inside and outside by 10%."
Gargantuan improvements. He did go from 5 ppg to 11 ppg, so kudos to him. But to frame it as a 10% increase is both inaccurate and comical.
FR: 47-85 from two 55%; 4-26 from three so 15%
SO: 127-224 from two 57%; 7-28 from three so 25%
So the vaunted 10% increase was going from 15% to 25% from three while being essentially the same player from 2 point range. But again, they are Texas, and we are poor ol' whupped down Mississippi State, so it's never surprising to see us being **** on by some jackleg attorney who has his thought pieces published on a website like Saturday Down South.
Why are we linking Saturday Down South articles? Are you 12
This guy said that Quincy Ballard lacks the upside of Nwoko. Clueless
It’s almost as if the guy has a beef against MSU. Worst grade on the list and gives other team grace while showing zero to us.I feel like SDS has always been like that.
“When it comes to MSU, if you know nothing, just write something trashing them.“
“When it comes to MSU, if you know nothing, just write something trashing them.“
Agree. And I’ve never even heard of Quincy Ballard.
Creating content because content has to be created.
I dont remember the last time I read an SDS article, but whenever that was, its still the last time I read an SDS article.
I dont remember the last time I read an SDS article, but whenever that was, its still the last time I read an SDS article.
SDS writes fan fiction. It’s not even worth reading 99 percent of the time
and if you know something good about MSU, twist it into something trashing them. It's like the old clarion ledger writers work for sds.
That guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Our portal class is very underrated in my opinion.
And Ballard has way more upside than Nwoko. That is absolute crazy talk.
Ballard will be in his 6th season of basketball this fall. Nwoko was a 2nd year true sophomore.
I am happy we got Ballard, at least based on production stats, but I dont for a minute think he has 'way more upside' compared to Nwoko.
Look at Ballard's stats after 2 seasons. Heck, look at Ballard's stats after 4 seasons.
Look at their per40 stats for this most recent season. Nwoko was a 2nd year player and Ballard was in his 5th year.
Based on what both have done so far, it seems wild to claim Ballard has way more upside. Nwoko was a darn solid sophomore big for us this past season and if he continues to progress, he will have some gaudy per40 stats in a couple years.
You should have stopped after the first part. Yes, he was solid for what we asked him to do. But that "if" you put in there...."if he continues to progress..." that ain't happening. Nwoko is basically Abdul Ado without some of the shot blocking ability - limited offensive game, decent rebounder because he's tall and someone has to get the rebound, and extremely foul prone. Most big guys don't just "progress" their way into much more than that after two years in college.
I dont think he will continue to progress in a linear manner from frosh to soph to jr and sr. But yeah I definitely expect him to continue to progress.
I mean, the other guy who is being talked about, Ballard, clearly progressed a bunch his 4th and 5th years.
I wouldnt expect Nwoko to be some pic and pop big man that is a terror on the perimeter and a beast on the boards.
But I wont be surprised to see that he is significantly more consistent in being a scoring threat on a game to game basis. He would be a threat for us one game then a non-factor in the next. Etc etc.
He has an ability to dive to the basket off screens and I think he can learn to do that more(or be featured more).
If he gets 25mpg and averages 13 and 9 as a senior, I wont be surprised.
...or maybe LSU is a bust and he cant get minutes because of whatever reasons.
Upside though? I would take the sophomore who already has better numbers at that point in college and also on a per40 basis vs the 5th year.
Nwoko couldn’t guard anybody without fouling. That’s why he was on the bench at the 18:00 minute mark of the 1st half of so many games with 2 fouls. I think he’s athletic and could have been a contributor. But he’s definitely not the defense stopper we need.
Just depends on how you want to grade. I'd give Jans a B as far as how he has filled in holes.
Looking at it as were you net positive or negative with portal inflow/outflow, then yea, it's negative, so I think you can give that a C or D. But realistically, the only years we aren't going to have negative outflow are probably going to be years in which we are able to upgrade because we were bad and didn't have people outbidding us for a good player or two. Best case scenario is that Jans consistently gets outbid for good players, and he consistently replaces them with cheaper options taht he coaches up, and maybe we have a special group at some point that want to stick together and really make some noise.
But as long as it's unfettered free agency every off season, we're going to generally look like we get worse in every off season after a successful year.
We still have spots available so it’s all bullshlt.
Ven-Allen Lubin from UNC trending our direction.
Ven-Allen Lubin from UNC trending our direction.