Bulldogs4

Basketball is one of those sports where rankings don’t matter. Your play on the court takes care of that. With coliseum being newly renovated and some momentum building with both the men’s and women’s teams, basketball could be fun this upcoming season.

I would guess at least 50 years (early 1970’s) or longer since we were the two bottom teams. Hard to fathom.

That is a wrap. What a disappointment this year was for State and Ole Miss. One thing is for certain, expectations for next year will be very subdued. Each club is going to need….ALOT. Something I heard through the grapevine today was that discipline at State is nonexistent. Bianco OTOH runs a tight ship. But at State, if that is true, falls at the feet of the HC. That is certainly is disheartening as well. Now I know, losing breeds negativity and coaches/players get impugned unfairly often times in the midst of that. All that to say, we need to do more than straighten the ship, we have got to plug some major holes because we have sunk about as low as you can go. Not much place left to go but sideways or up.

Well dang. This one hurt. Just kind of sums up the season. We are a sub .370 team in conference and a .500 team overall. Pitched decently outside of three pitches but they all count. Did not realize we were technically alive. For those three things to happen would be a total conundrum. For Ole Miss, I know they are like I was last year in that I was glad the season was over.

Easy to say but hard to do. Our guys just need to find a way to win today. Then let the other results go as they will. If we sweep and one of the other teams has game cancelled (provided they lose the other two games) because of weather we will be in by virtue of a better record. 11-19 will be better than 10-19. Of course I am getting ahead of myself there.

Tough year for Ole Miss. We have beat this dead horse to death but State last year and Ole Miss this year after winning the Natty have both been dumbfounding to me. I did not expect either team to repeat but for both to fall to last place just did not even seem possible.

State still hanging in by a thread. Georgia lost to LSU Missouri was rained out at Auburn. Obviously, all we can control is our game. One win down. Next game tomorrow is still crucial.

With Dillon Johnson leaving that definitely gives some depth to RB chart. Marks is very good but he can’t carry the load by himself.

Berry has run a great program at USM for years and will be leaving the team in very good stead. That 2017 was a great team but got beat at home by State team that was quite frankly not that good. But we were able to manufacture some wins out of the losers bracket in win the Regional in Hattiesburg. That was the Regional that was inundated with rain all weekend. He was also a great coach at Meridian Community College back in the nineties. We attended the same church then and he and his wife have a great family. Well earned and deserved Coach.

Pitching still gave up 29 runs in three games. Not exactly impressive at all. LSU’s pitching behind Skenes/Floyd is arguably worse than ours. And I know they have had some injuries as well. I hope we can ride this momentum through the weekend. Coming back from nine down on the road against the number 2 team has to do wonders for our self esteem and confidence.

Georgia chokes in the 9th inning so barring a small miracle we are toast. Though I suppose we are technically still alive. But still proud of the team for not throwing in the towel after Friday night or today after being down 13-4. Would have been very easy to do so. Regardless of post season opportunities, I would at least like us to finish strong this week.

Certainly was glad to win tonight. And the fact that we out played LSU was a nice surprise. Have a chance to win the series tomorrow. And I had already predicted we would lose out the rest of the year. Credit to Cade Smith and KC Hunt for pitching well tonight. Most likely too little too late though. We will see what happens there. But 83 you are correct in saying we have to win out to even have a prayer of qualifying for Hoover.

The timing of the game is terrible for State but this is not 1979 anymore. USM is improving and Hall is doing a good job. But State still wins this game. The talent level is no where close anymore. An upset is always possible but I just don’t see it happening here. Plus State is not going to overlook Southern. It is still an important instate game.

I would like to USM stay hot down the stretch and get a Host seed. Still work to do but it is possible.

State’s Women’s Golf team wins the Regional and is moving on to the Nationals next week in Arizona. State’s Men’s Tennis team takes on TCU in the Tennis version of the Sweet Sixteen. I know, I know … I am reaching here but we need something to be happy about….

Weak schedule. But Enterprise will lose to Noxubee County and Union. Clarkdale and Lake will be toss ups. So 7-2 at best and possibly 5-4 or 6-3 with a first or second round playoff loss.

I think State is a 6-6 team this year. I think Arnett will be like Mullen in 2009 and make a few mistakes during the season that he will learn from. If things go well, we could be 7-5/8-4 and if things go South it could be 5-7. With a new HC, you just don’t know until the season evolves. One thing is for sure. Where Leach was stoic and very seldom showed emotion, Arnett has some fire in his belly. So for better or worse, we will see some emotion on the sideline this season. Not sure about Ole Miss. The way the season ended was certainly disappointing but each year is different. Expectations being lower this year may work to their advantage. Kiffin will hopefully moderate his riverboat gambling style. Taking prudent risks makes sense but sometimes you need to just punt.

In other news State Women’s golf team has a good chance to go to the National Championship. First day of the Regionals has gone well.

I can live with losing but the way we have been destroyed this season in conference play is what me and I think 99% of the fanbase can’t stomach. If we were 6-18 in the league with half dozen one run losses and half of dozen two run losses and our pitching staff was not getting shelled virtually every game, I would be okay. Obviously, I want to win but baseball is a fickle game and close losses can and do happen. But the fact that we are 6-18 and most of the losses have been with the other team scoring double digits is just too much. We are just not competitive at all.

Guys I was flat wrong when I suggested that we could still make a run. We are going to finish 6-24 in the conference. Can softball make a run? Tennis? Golf? when does football season start?

It almost seems like with both teams reaching the pinnacle that the best thing to do would be to start fresh with a new HC and possibly keep at least one of the existing staff to have some carryover. There seems to be a hex over both teams last year with State and again this year along with Ole Miss. Every bad thing that can go wrong seems to go wrong and multiply and then nothing good happens when the opportunity presents itself. Again I am not one to advocate changing coaches but it is possible that Bianco at Ole Miss and Lemonis at State (though it is much shorter time wise) have done all they can do for the respective teams and their time is ending. However, we will see how it pans out.

I am old school so I don’t like firing coaches during the season. But that thought process is like the 8 track stereo. It just does not exist anymore. The dynamics that led to this are just dumb founding to me. He seems to be a good coach and I still think we have pitching talent but something has just gone off the rails. I have been a Lemonis supporter but we are missing something in the baseball program. And I don’t know what it is. And yet even though I said previously that we are toast, the season is not dead yet. I guess that is why I am surprised and disappointed that we fired a coach now instead of letting the season play out and finish. While the immediate future is dim, the opportunity still exists for this team to make a run. Doubtful but still possible.

We are completely toast now. We had to win two this weekend. Barring a miracle we are done. Giving up 8 and 12 runs back to back gets you two losses.

William Carey has always been good in baseball. Years ago State used to play them regularly and the games were competitive and WC won more than a few games too. Then in the late 90’s the RPI folks stopped counting games against teams that were not D1. So State had to stop playing WC, Delta State, Livingston, MC, Milsaps etc. even those teams were as good as any lower level D1 team and in some years probably better than 50% of the northern D1 teams. Hope they bring home the bacon this year.

The actual date you have spring practice is your own choice. Years ago, it used to be in February/early March so as not to interfere with baseball. Baseball started around March 15th then when the weather was more moderate. Baseball also extended past when school ended as well. Nowadays they finish baseball before Memorial Day. But I don’t see a team getting into trouble over when their spring training occurs as long as the actual practices conform with the policies of the State Association.