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Obviously he had to build State from the ground up and the first couple of years were lean and had a lot of growing pains. State fans bought into the program early on because they appreciated the effort the ladies played with and they could sense something was good was being built. Whereas at Texas, he already had the talent there and all the resources. There was nothing to build other than taking the team to back to the FF or winning a second NC. They have had a lot of success and have been to the SS and EE numerous times but their last Final Four was 2003. As we all know, you have to have a great team and have some luck to win it all. That is interesting that he still has his home in Starkville and visits occasionally. It is certainly an underrated city and community.

Interesting that Schaefer really has not done anything approaching what he did at State so far in the three years he has been at Texas. Though they did make it to the Elite Eight in 2021 and 2022 before falling off the round of 32 this year. At his age time could start to be a factor. What he did at State was tremendous but I am not sure that he is going to win that elusive National Championship at Texas either. At the time he left I did not think that he was the right fit at Texas and I still don’t think it is. He is very much a blue collar, blood and guts, gritty coach. That style just doesn’t fit the spoiled, upward noised Longhorns. In the back my mind and I am sure most State folks minds was that he would return to A&M when Blair retired. I think he would have been a much better fit there and I think he could have won a NC there as a HC. Just don’t see him doing at the cesspool that is Austin and the University of Texas. All that to say good luck to Ole Miss against Louisville. Another tough match up but they very capable of winning it.

Girls made a valiant effort at ND but came up short. Looks like Ole Miss Lady Rebs are the Last Mississippi team still playing round ball but they play Stanford and that will take a great effort to pull off a win. Future looks bright at State as Purcell seems to have righted the ship. He signed a solid recruiting class this year as well. Not sure what the future holds at Ole Miss but Coach Yo has slowly built a good program so I am presuming all should well in Oxford as well.

Serves us right. Wearing stupid black uniforms. I thought we had finally burned those ridiculous black unis a few years ago. I know these are just black jerseys. But black IS NOT ONE OF OUR COLORS. Just don’t get it. And I know the uniform has nothing to do with how bad we are. But it just compounds it. We have made Kentucky look like the NC’s this weekend.

Difficult loss tonight. Will see how resilient we are the next two days. Ole Miss off to a tough start against Vandy. They need to win tomorrow to salvage a game. 0-3 is not a good way to start the conference season.

Purdue has lost to three straight double digit seeds in the NCAAT.

Purdue is absolutely the worst NCAAT team in the country. Period.

SEC Schedule makers are incredibly dumb. Scheduling KY with a home series the first weekend of the conference season. WX forecast is the temps will be in the 30’s all three games this weekend. Care to guess the attendance for these games? 500 for each at most (actual attendance not paid). I get it that is part of the deal but IMO it is another reason to push the season back even one week possibly make a difference. Baseball was not intended to be played in these kind of weather conditions. An additional worry is possible injuries to players…especially pitchers as that kind of cold is very tough on your arm.

Princeton is one of those teams that you hate to play. They play like a team but more importantly most pundits underrate their talent. They have some players. They had guys that just flat beat the AZ players one on one. So yes they are sound fundamentally but their players are talented as well. It is not a fluke that they compete well and win games in the NCAAT. We played them back in 1996 in the second round and our overall physical talent was just too much for them. But they had beat UCLA in the first round. They just could not match up with Damper, Jones, Wilson etc. But going into that game, I was very worried. And we ended winning comfortably but I was never comfortable until late in the game.

As I mentioned recently, our pitching had to improve (specifically throwing strikes) for us to start winning some games. That seems to be the case over the last 10 days. But can we throw strikes consistently in LEX this weekend? The answer will let us know how our weekend goes.

Often see that happen when teams that are disappointed not to make the NCAAT then they have no motivation when they play in the NIT.

I was going to say State has quietly won seven games in a row albeit against weak opponents. But when you are bad, any win is a good win. Not really sure how good Kentucky is but winning two this weekend would be huge. I agree that Vandy is not necessarily that good and Ole Miss wins two. I like USM to win two at Texas State.

State dominates Illinois in the second half to win the play in game today and will now face off against Creighton Friday. Close game in the first half and we led by 1 point at the half but we just took the game over in third quarter. Great game by our ladies and a good win.

Dang Could not ask for a better look When he shot it looked good Uggggghhhhh

Pitt is 8-13 from Three in the first half and we are only down 1 point. If they keep shooting it that well from three in the second half we are toast. Hopefully they will cool off some and we can continue to dominate on the inside and come away with a win. We will see what happens.

Oops I had my years criss crossed there. I think it was in 2002 that we got screwed having to play Texas in DFW in the second round even though we were a much higher seed.

In fairness, you are going to end up with some teams close to home and others farther away and then some really far away. Auburn will certainly have some advantage there but they still have to beat the other team on the court. Lot of moving parts when you are dealing with 60+ teams. At least for this tournament, Auburn hit the jackpot. We were in BHM in 2004 and had 90% of the fans and Xavier still beat us (as 83 noted, they hit every three they threw up, or so it seemed)

Would be ironic if we beat Pitt and Iowa State and then get payback against Xavier for the loss they gave us about twenty years ago when we were a two seed.

This year the SEC is going to be a war every weekend. There appears to be no weak teams. I would think it will be difficult for any team to win 20 conference games. State is the worst team in the conference right now but we will not be an easy out for any conference opponent. Going to be an interesting season to say the least.

Happy for our guys especially Tolu. Hopefully we can play relaxed with no pressure on us a get a win in Dayton. I think we were pressing against Vandy and Florida and maybe now we can just play ball and see what happens.

Agree on State. Lately our shooting has been atrocious. But if we shoot the ball halfway decent we can beat anybody. But if we shoot like we did against Bama we are one and done.

I can agree with that. I think they crash and burn. Maybe even in the first weekend. They are very good but very beatable and in the tournament as we all know, anything can happen. Oates is definitely brash and arrogant but that kind of attitude can come back and bite you. I won’t be surprised if that happens to them in the NCAAT.

Not surprising that that happens in baseball. State had a walk off 4-3 win against Lipscomb yesterday. The key is preserving in those games and winning them. State seems to be a bit better but we are still making too many errors and in yesterday’s second game our pitchers walked 8 batters. Lipscomb is not a bad team but obviously they are well below SEC level. Tough week ahead. Play two games in BIX against Nicholls and ULL and then go on the road at UK. Desperately need to win the 2 OOC games and take 2 of 3 at UK. Easier said than done however. Ole Miss is playing very well going into Conference play.

Agree on Jones. He can be a star in the future. Has a great basketball body and seems to be one of those players who has great instincts and can just make plays. The game against Bama could be interesting. Bama has a one seed locked up and the incentive level may be lower. The pressure is off us and we were more than competitive with them both games and could have easily one either or both during the regular season. A win is not out of the rim of possibilities. We will see what happens.

He has earned a scholarship and I am sure it will be forthcoming if it has not already been done. 83, I agree Tolu played one of the great games ever and came through in the clutch to win the game.