2014 Mississippi State Basketball Preview
It’s hard to believe with all the football excitement that surrounds Mississippi State, that it’s almost time for hoops and the Hump, but that’s exactly where we are in the calendar.
We are less than a month away from tip-off and year three of the Rick Ray era in Starkville.
Mississippi State is coming off a 14-19 (3-15 SEC) finish from a year ago, and while the Bulldogs have improved each of the last two years under Ray, they feel this year could be a year the Bulldogs return to post-season, of some sort.
For the first time since Ray has been on campus in Starkville, he will field a full roster of players. The Bulldogs now have 15-men on the roster which is a huge deal for Ray. The first two years Ray was in Starkville, you saw walk-ons, an empty bench and more as the Bulldogs tried to piece a team together to make it through a season.
The Bulldogs return five key players from last year’s team in Trivante Bloodman, Tevin Moore, I.J. Ready, Gavin Ware, Roquez Johnson and Craig Sword.
But, this year the Bulldogs will not have to depend on Ware as their biggest player, as the Bulldogs have added size and athleticism to the roster.
The Bulldogs now have six players over 6-7 and added five freshmen to the mix.
Coach Ray recently spoke with the media and here are some excerpts from those conversations, courtesy of hailstate.com
On the characteristics of his team:
“The one thing that really stands out is our length and athleticism. I think that we can really do some things 94-feet defensively; things that I’ve been wanting to do here in the past couple of years. But I think with our length and athleticism we can do that.
The thing that’s unique about our team is, along with their length and athleticism, we actually have quickness, too. I think that we have some guys like I.J. [Ready], Trivante [Bloodman], Chicken, and Maurice Dunlap that can really bother the basketball defending it. I think that we have some guys that can rotate over defensively with their length like Oliver Black, Demetrius Houston, Travis Daniels, and Fallou Ndoye that can really be effective with what we want to do in pressing.
That has really stood out. The other thing that has really stood out for us is what’s happening when the shot goes up. It used to be when the shot goes up, we really weren’t around the basketball and around the rim, but now we have guys like Oliver Black and Demetrius Houston going in and getting offensive rebounds and affecting the shot after it has left the shooter’s hands. I think that’s really encouraging from those two standpoints.”
On wanting to play Craig Sword at point guard :
“That has obviously been stunted a little bit because we wanted to get Chicken some experience at doing that here in practice and we haven’t been able to do that because of the injury. We still have two really good options with I.J. and Trivante at the point guard position, but I wanted to have somebody that was a bigger point guard when we play someone like a Harrison kid from Kentucky, where he’s 6’6”.
Now we can put Chicken out there, who’s 6’4”, and hopefully have a bigger and stronger team out there. I want to always make sure that we have three options at the point guard position, and I think Chicken can be an option for that and will be an option.”
On being careful when dealing with injuries:
“We will definitely air on the side of caution. I think you guys all know, anytime that you’re dealing with a back injury, there are always four to six weeks. So if there’s a situation where we don’t quite feel confident with him after four weeks then we’ll definitely stretch it to five weeks. And if at five weeks we don’t feel confident with it, we’ll stretch it to six weeks.
When it’s all said and done, we want to make sure that we’re doing what’s best for our student-athletes welfare. So until Chicken feels good about it and our medical staff feels good about it, we won’t push him to get back just because we want to get him out there for games.”
On Gavin Ware:
“I think the biggest thing that we’ve seen the difference in with Gavin [Ware] is that he actually has competition in practice, day-in and day-out. It used to be that Gavin could make a post-move against Fallou and then come across the lane and there was no one there to challenge him at the rim. Now you have Oliver Black coming up and challenging him at the rim. You have other guys challenging him at the rim, and that’s making Gavin Ware a better basketball player.
But more importantly, it’s making him aware of his surroundings. And now another thing affecting Gavin Ware is a competition for minutes now. And it’s a legitimate competition for minutes. So this will be the first time that Gavin has been challenged, and I think he has really responded well to those challenges. I think when it’s all said and done, Gavin Ware’s improvement has to do with his conditioning. If he’s not well-conditioned, then he doesn’t become a better basketball player because he can’t play as hard as he needs to in order to be successful.
So what we want to do is focus on him being a conditioned athlete, and I think that if he is a conditioned athlete, he’ll have a better year this year. And obviously the help that he has around his now will really help as well.”
On the advantages of having a smaller, quicker point guard:
“I think bigger point guards have a hard time keeping up with I.J. and Trivante. I also think that bigger point guards a difficulty guarding ball screens cause they get hit by more ball screens because there is more body to hit. I don’t think that’s a problem. We never really worry about that. If we end up with a bigger point guard on I.J. or Trivante, it’s to our benefit.”
On the goals of his basketball team:
“I think when’s it’s all said and done, it’s pretty simple. We need to be challenging for postseason basketball. Whether that is the NIT or the NCAA, that’s yet to be determined and that’s really out of our hands because if you sit down and ask what the requirements are for an NCAA Tournament basketball team, you really don’t know.
It kind of changes every day. Is RPI more important? Is strength of schedule more important, winning 20 games, what you did in conference play? There’s no true barometer of what gets you into the NCAA Tournament. For us, we want to make sure that we’re in a position to be challenging for postseason basketball.”
On his team’s nonconference schedule goals:
“Well we don’t have a specific win/loss total. To me, I think there’s one opportunity for us to go down to Corpus Christi, Texas and play for a championship. I think if we can go down there and win a championship, that’s significant because now the team is in the mindset of going and competing for championships. I think the other thing with our nonconference schedule is, it’s an indicator of what I think of my team.
We bumped up our nonconference schedule because I think we have a better basketball team. I think we have a chance to go and win at an Oregon State. I think we have a chance to win at Tulane. I think we have a chance to come in and win against a very good Florida State basketball team. That’s the reason that we do it because I have confidence in my team.”
On his team being able to control a game …
“Obviously we haven’t been in that situation before because we simply didn’t have the personnel and the depth to do that. But what I would like to see is for us to play at a faster tempo on the defensive end. We also want to play faster on the offensive end as well. But this is what we do not want to do: we do not want to create offense for the other team. I think what happens a lot of times when teams press, what they end up doing is creating offensive opportunities for the other team. We want to make sure that we’re pressing, but we want to make sure that we’re being solid and sound in our pressing. It’s the same thing with us on the offensive end. We want to push and we want to attack, but we don’t want to do that and end up turning the basketball over. It’s all about ball security on the offensive end and still being sound on the defensive end, even though we’re pressing.”
On the development of Travis Daniels and Fallou Ndoye:
“It remains to be seen because they haven’t played any actual games. And so I really don’t have an answer to that, until we see how they do when the popcorn is popping. I think in practices right now you can see that they have a level of maturity to them because they’ve been in our program for a year and that’s a benefit for them.
But we really don’t know how they’re going to respond to being in a game. Some kids are unbelievable in practice, and then they get out in the game and they kind of freeze up for the first time. So we’ll see how they react to that when there are actual people in the stands. As of right now, Fallou has a distinct advantage because of the fact that he’s been here for a whole two semesters, whereas Travis only had one semester. But I think them sitting out has actually benefitted them as far as being ready to get on the court. “
On his team’s confidence from last year’s SEC tournament:
“Yeah, I really believe so. I think our guys went into the offseason with a confidence that they could be a good basketball team because of the success that they had in the SEC tournament. And I really do believe that if Fred Thomas hadn’t hurt his ankle during that game [vs. Ole Miss] and we didn’t have anyone to chase around Marshal Henderson, I think would’ve made a huge difference and we would’ve had success in the second half too.
But I thought Fred Thomas’ ankle injury in that second half of the Ole Miss game really turned things around because we didn’t have anyone with any height and length to chase around Marshall Henderson. But I think our guys saw that we could have success. And now with those key components coming in that we’re adding to, we can even go forward from there.”
On the importance of guards and ball handling:
“I don’t think it’s necessarily just a point guard game, but what I think it has become is a ball handler’s game. You see a guy like Chicken, he really affects the game with his ability to penetrate, but it’s not just off of ball screens but also in the open court.
So to me, it’s not so much a point guard game, but it’s become a guard’s game, with first and foremost ball screens. Everybody runs a ball screen offense. I tell our guys every single time, defensively, when you’re guy passes the basketball, he’s going to go set a ball screen. They don’t do anything else. So don’t be surprised by a guy setting a ball screen.
But I think with everybody running some sort of a ball screen motion, it’s opening up the court for these guards, these really good ball handlers and penetrators to go make a play. I think the other thing that’s happening too, with the way that referees call the game now, with the emphasis on hand checking and not being physical on the court, it has really opened the game up for guys like Chicken who can put their head down and drive to the basket. Because when you give them space, it’s almost impossible to keep these guys out of the lane without fouling them with the way that the referees call it.”
On the importance of finishing at the rim:
“I think what you have to do is put those guys in a situation where they can finish. And I think that’s something that we’ve changed in our offense. We always used to have our fours and fives racing behind the ball screen, but now what we’ve done is put those guys up underneath the basket because Chicken, I.J., Trivante, Fred Thomas, Demetrius Houston and those guys are going to get into the lane. Once they get into the lane, we want to put that big man defensively in a situation where he has to decide to help on the drive or to stay with his man. And once he helps up on the drive, it’s all about our big men having the ability to finish. That’s what we’ve been working on so much. Once Chicken draws your man and he throws the ball to you, you have to have the ability to finish or all the drives and all the spacing that we have really doesn’t mean anything.”
Closing Remarks:
“One last note here, I think this is really obvious, not anything subtle. We have a brand new scoreboard that has been lowered so that everyone can see it. We’re really excited about the fact that we have this brand new scoreboard. It’s high-definition now, instead of it being standard definition. I think it’s going to be a really good fan experience for people that come to the game.”
2013-14 Team Statistics and Leaders:
2014 Signing Class:
2015 Commitments (nonbinding):
2014-15 Men’s Basketball Schedule:
| DATE | OPPONENT | LOCATION | TIME (CT) | RESULTS | MEDIA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, |
Nov 06
Delta State (Exh.)Starkville6:00 p.m.Fri,
Nov 14
Western CarolinaStarkville5:30 p.m.Mon,
Nov 17
Mississippi Valley StateStarkville7:00 p.m.Sat,
Nov 22
Utah StateStarkville2:00 p.m.Mon,
Nov 24
Clayton StateStarkville7:00 p.m.Corpus Christi ChallengeFri,
Nov 28
St. LouisCorpus Christi, TXTBASat,
Nov 29
Bradley/TCUCorpus Christi, TXTBASat,
Dec 06
TulaneNew Orleans, LATBASat,
Dec 13
Oregon StateCorvallis, OR3:00 p.m.
Wed,
Dec 17
Arkansas StateStarkville6:00 p.m.
Sat,
Dec 20
USC UpstateJackson, MS3:00 p.m.Tue,
Dec 23
JacksonvilleStarkville7:00 p.m.Tue,
Dec 30
McNeese StateStarkville7:00 p.m.Fri,
Jan 02
Florida StateStarkville7:00 p.m.
Wed,
Jan 07
Tennessee *Starkville8:00 p.m.
Sat,
Jan 10
Florida *Gainesville, FL6:00 p.m.
Tue,
Jan 13
Texas A&M *College Station, TX8:00 p.m.
Sat,
Jan 17
Vanderbilt *Starkville3:00 p.m.
Wed,
Jan 21
Auburn *Auburn, AL8:00 p.m.
Sat,
Jan 24
Georgia *Starkville2:00 p.m.
Wed,
Jan 28
Ole Miss *Oxford, MS8:00 p.m.
Sat,
Jan 31
LSU *Starkville1:00 p.m.
Tue,
Feb 03
Tennessee *Knoxville, TN6:00 p.m.
Sat,
Feb 07
Arkansas *Fayetteville, AR3:00 p.m.
Tue,
Feb 10
Alabama *Starkville8:00 p.m.
Sat,
Feb 14
Missouri *Columbia, MO3:00 p.m.
Thu,
Feb 19
Ole Miss *Starkville8:00 p.m.
Sat,
Feb 21
Arkansas *Starkville3:00 p.m.
Wed,
Feb 25
Kentucky *Starkville6:00 p.m.
Sat,
Feb 28
South Carolina *Columbia, SC5:00 p.m.
Wed,
Mar 04
Vanderbilt *Nashville, TN8:00 p.m.
Sat,
Mar 07
Missouri *Starkville5:30 p.m.
Wed,
Mar 11
SEC TournamentNashville, TN (Bridgestone Arena)TBAThu,
Mar 12
SEC TournamentNashville, TN (Bridgestone Arena)TBAFri,
Mar 13
SEC TournamentNashville, TN (Bridgestone Arena)TBASat,
Mar 14
SEC TournamentNashville, TN (Bridgestone Arena)TBASun,
Mar 15
SEC TournamentNashville, TN (Bridgestone Arena)TBATue,
Mar 17
NCAA First FourDayton, OHTBAWed,
Mar 18
NCAA First FourDayton, OHTBAThu,
Mar 19
NCAA 2nd/3rd RoundsVarious SitesTBAFri,
Mar 20
NCAA 2nd/3rd RoundsVarious SitesTBASat,
Mar 21
NCAA 2nd/3rd RoundsVarious SitesTBASun,
Mar 22
NCAA 2nd/3rd RoundsVarious SitesTBAThu,
Mar 26
NCAA RegionalsVarious SitesTBAFri,
Mar 27
NCAA RegionalsVarious SitesTBASat,
Mar 28
NCAA RegionalsVarious SitesTBASun,
Mar 29
NCAA RegionalsVarious SitesTBASat,
Apr 04
NCAA Final FourIndianapolis, IN (Lucas Oil Stadium)TBAMon,
Apr 06
NCAA Final FourIndianapolis, IN (Lucas Oil Stadium)TBA