Twelve years ago today Rick Ray was hired.
- Thread starter DesotoCountyDawg
- Start date
He needed just one more year.***
His fingerprints are all over the Clemson and Purdue runs to the Elite Eight and Final Four. These things take time you know.
I feel like I’m a pretty knowledgeable college hoops fan and was back then too, but I’m not lying when I tell you I had never heard of the guy or even seen his name until it was announced we were hiring him.
I have a friend that might be one of the most knowledgeable college basketball fans in America. He could probably tell you the coach and starting five for Wisconsin-Milwaukee no joke. When State hired Rick Ray is legitimately didnt know the first thing about him or where he was from.
I can remember a bunch of the names that were thrown out during that search and none of them were Rick Ray. Kenny Payne was almost the hire. Steve Prohm turned us down twice. We reached out to Frank Martin but he picked South Carolina over us. Bryce Drew said no. Rob Jeter (ironically the coach at Wisconsin-Milwaukee at that time) was in the mix. Kermit Davis got some message board support but Stricklin had major NCAA phobia and was afraid of anyone with baggage (also Kermit hadn’t done much at MTSU yet).
My understanding is Scott was set to hire Kenny Payne and then got cold feet because of Kenny’s AAU ties. So we went with someone who had even less business being a candidate.
Craig Sword stand up!!!
Joking aside I feel bad for some of those kids who played for him the whole time.
Joking aside I feel bad for some of those kids who played for him the whole time.
Stricklin said he didn't realize how bad State was viewed nationally at that time in coaching circles. I'm guessing he fired Stansbury before he did that research.
He 100% got rid of Stans without a replacement plan in place. It’s probably the worst coaching search we’ve ever conducted in the modern era and a major black mark on Scott’s legacy here (although most are just mad at him for hiring Mullen away).
The weird thing about Stricklin’s tenure is he never had to hire a football coach or a baseball coach. And also he had to hire a women’s coach at the same time as Ray and absolutely struck gold with Schaefer. But the way this was handled was a nuke to our men’s program.
He did better in his second attempt with the Howland hire but also had the benefit of Howland being out of coaching completely and just working TV for the PAC-12 network at the time.
He did better in his second attempt with the Howland hire but also had the benefit of Howland being out of coaching completely and just working TV for the PAC-12 network at the time.
I can remember being on my couch in my apartment thinking "who the hell is that?"
I also remember being at 5 guys in a foley, Alabama when he was fired.
The narrative that entire season was that it was NCAA tourney or gone for Stansbury, but Stricklin still did not have a plan.
To be fair, that team missing the tourney was inconceivable at one point in early February. Then just totally collapsed against the soft part of our schedule. But yes, could not believe he made THAT decision to fire Stansbury with no idea where he was going next.
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Has to be the crappiest April fool joke ever pulled on anyone .
Ironically, we now know that Stricklin at least chose the better coach out of Ray and Payne.
Shall we recall the misery?
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mississippi State Bulldogs (Southeastern Conference) (2012–2015) | |||||
| 2012–13 | Mississippi State | 10–22 | 4–14 | T–12th | |
| 2013–14 | Mississippi State | 14–19 | 3–15 | 14th | |
| 2014–15 | Mississippi State | 13–19 | 6–12 | T–11th | |
| Mississippi State: | 37–60 (.381) | 13–41 (.241) |
Stricklin was getting a lot of pressure from very influential boosters possibly including some former players to hire Kenny Payne. The story at the time was that World Wide Wes would be on the staff.. Scott was navigating a minefield internally, but damned that hire was a swing & a miss.
The funny thing is that the “coaching search” when Williams “left” was probably even worse. Never even went outside Starkville. LT told Stans to just make the NIT every now and then, and it’s all gravy after that.
The Rick Ray fiasco summed up Stricklin’s tenure for me. The Howland hire seemed like a home run until the Adidas recruiting pipeline closed. So, even that was a meh hire in hindsight.
I don’t get his value as an AD at all. And I definitely don’t get why Florida wanted him, unless it’s because they wanted jellyfish as their AD.
Somehow that 10-22 record doesn’t do it justice. Think we got beat 70something to 30something by both Mizzou and Vandy that year. Never had less confidence in a State team than those 3 years.
Scott is good at facilities and marketing but that’s kinda the whole package with him. He’s not exactly trustworthy with coaching searches. And it may get him run out of Gainesville if Sun Belt Billy flops this fall.
10-22 in that era of the SEC is especially bad. We didn’t even finish last in the SEC that year thanks to Tony Barbee’s Auburn. And we beat a South Carolina team twice that was every bit as bad as we were. I believe the SEC was only a 3 bid league that year and one of them was Ole Miss who got in via winning the SECT.
Put it on ebay, maybe an Ole Miss fan will buy it or someone from the SEC front office.
I’ll take two straight first round exits over only appearing once in the previous 14 years.
17 that panzied *** former male cheerleader from Jackson Prep.
He literally nuked our basketball program for more than a generation. The same thing he has done with Florida football. He is a 17 joke.
He literally nuked our basketball program for more than a generation. The same thing he has done with Florida football. He is a 17 joke.
Rick Ray was so bad, he had a 13-game losing streak in back to back seasons. In 2013, we lost a home game to Missouri 78-36. Our very next home game, we lost to Vanderbilt 72-31. That is correct, an SEC team barely scored over 30 points in a 40 minute game.
Had we given him one more year, we were probably in the final four, elite eight at least. Bring him home.
This was the thing...Stricklin was adamant about cutting ties with AAU. A noble idea, but he didn't realize no coach would come here with that type of recruiting restriction.
I was playing golf with a Clemson alum the day after the hire. He was trying to be upbeat and supportive, bur even he didn't know much about Ray.
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