Rough Weekend

Wow, what a tough weekend to be a Bulldog. The loss to Mississippi in basketball is still stinging me today, Tuesday. The Pat Patterson Saga still get to me a little bit. And then, we lost a recruit to Tulsa. As for the basketball game, what an embarrassment. I will say, however, that I called it. Nearly everything I said in my last post came true about the game. We started out hot as fire, Ravern especially. He got near his 20. Dee had some assists. Other than that, we went cold, just what I said we couldn't afford to do. We went cold, let them hang around, and they made us pay for it. Honestly, we were outcoached, outplayed, and outsmarted. They had a gameplan and they came in and executed it, from start to finish. They played against the 4-guard line-up we had they way a team is supposed to play against a 4-guard look. They let us have our 3's. By contrast, they controlled the paint. I mean, totally manhandled us down there. Jarvis couldn't get anything going simply because they weren't going to allow him ANY easy buckets. They collapsed on him everytime he touched the rock. They fouled him, they beat him up, they neutralized him. They did everything they could to stop him. Genius! Because behind Jarvis, who do we have? Elgin Bailey nor Brian Johnson got in the game.
On offense, the rebels attacked the paint. And while Jarvis never really got into foul trouble, he was worn out. And guess what? When the 3's stopped falling at the start of the 2nd half where does our game plan then lie? Down low. With Jarvis. He couldn't do anything because he had done everything. It was him against 4 or 5 rebels on every single rebound. Every damn one of them. None of our guards crashed the boards like they need to. Our only other consistently playing "big man" is Romaro Osby, and he wants to play more of a small forward/shooters role than getting down low and getting some boards.
We also had one of our best shooters have his worst game in 3 years. Everyone knows who I'm talking about. He had 3 air balls. But, Stansbury understands that we can't afford to not have his hustle and leadership on the floor, so we left him in. And it was he who gave his last foul near the end of the game to try and give us a chance at tying it up, even though it meant he would play no role in overtime. He had a bad game. It happens to the LeBrons of the world to, so give him a break.
Back to the game and how we were manhandled by a team with half our talent. The rebels didn't freak when we jumped out early. They called their time-out, regrouped, and played their game. They knew we would go cold from the arc and we did. They also controlled the pace of the game and didn't let us get out and run with the ball in transition, in part due to our pathetic rebounding effort. Touchet to Mississippi. They got their win in Starkville for this decade. Now we can look forward to the game in Oxford because I can guarantee you this... They won't win with that same gameplan again. Stansbury and staff will get that worked out.

On to the recruiting weekend. It started out with the surprise and shock of Pat Patterson announcing that he would be in Starkville for a visit this weekend. Rather, Yancy (Dumbass) Porter saying that he would be in Starkville for the weekend. Honestly, my judgement on the case was that Fancy Yancy wanted to stir up our fanbase. We have been obsessed with the Patterson soap-opera since his de-commitment. Let's let him go. If he wants to be a rebel, then I sure as hell don't want him to be a Bulldog. He is good, but no better than Bumphis or Chirs Smith anyway. That comes straight from a very important QB recruit's mouth. I'll get deep into the recruiting aspect some point this weekend when I have time to sit down and type out my evaluations on each and every signee. Tomorrow is the BIG DAY.

I'll get around to the baseball preview sometime soon, definitely before the season starts. As for now, I got stuff to do so I'm signing off.