Back in November, the Mississippi State offense suddenly woke up with about 6 minutes left in the game. In a flurry of scoring, the Bulldogs put 17 straight points on the board to win the game, sending the tens of thousands of MSU fans at the game into ecstacy.
A similar situation occurred on Saturday, February 2, 2008. Mississippi State's offense woke up with about 6 minutes left in the game. They even had similar deficit. This time the comback would fall short. Tennessee, playing as well as any team in the US, answered many of MSU's scores and defended the rest. Within the final minute, MSU had one chance to go ahead and one chance to tie. Riley Benock, who seemingly had a wide open shot, decided to pump-fake and pass. He traveled. Benock has shown himself to be a sharpshooter from anywhere on the court and until that point had been very dependable with the basketball. He is just a freshman. I certainly do not blame him for the loss. In fact, I would prefer he start over Turner, simply because he does take such good care of the ball. I have more on Benock in a second. Then team leader Jamont Gordon had a fairly good look from the top of the three-point line and just missed the shot. Lets face it, he is no Michael Jordan. He is a major reason State even made it back into that game. He did not make the game winning shot, but he was very much responsible for making sure we had a chance, so no fault can be put on him. So then, after such a rough week I think many Bulldog fans, like myself want to know who to blame. And I (who can't play basketball to save my life) have a very simple answer. Nobody and everybody.
I think the simple problem in the last two games is shooting. Not that State did not shoot a decent percentage, but that they didn't shoot. In the Tennessee game, State shot 16 less times than Tennessee. If State would have made 46% of those shots they would have scored 7 more points. That would have been a win. Now in the Arkansas game, Arkansas shot 12 more times than MSU. At 40% shooting that would have only accounted for about 4 points. Of course the game was a 20 point blowout, but who knows if those extra points would have changed the dynamic of the game. This goes back to Benock. He didn't shoot at all. He scored 12 on 4 threes against Ole Miss, yet continually passed up open shots against Tennessee. The crowd knew it too. They booed him at one point for passing up the shot. Again, I don't blame it on Benock, I think it is something that should be worked on by the whole club, staff and players. You can't score unless you shoot.
After the game, I expected today's headlines on ESPN and other publications to read something like exposed or overrated or something like that. But instead they seemed to signal repsect. I think many pundits now realize that if MSU makes it to the dance (which is looking less likely unless they make a deep run in the SEC tourney), they will be a tough put out. So, I guess that is a good thing.
Well, at least it was a good day for the Redskins (as good as it can be when the Giants are playing in the Superbowl and you have no coach). Art Monk and Darrell Green were selected for the Hall of Fame. The honor was long overdue for Monk. Unsuprisingly, it was Green's first time on the ballot. Unsuprisingly because he is the best NFL Cornerback ever (eat that Deion). So, congrats to them.
I was gonna write about something else, but I forgot what that was so, enjoy the Superbowl.
-J
No comments:
Post a Comment