Can’t lose this game(go to Arkansas Tourney hopes for reasons why)
My only concern is it’s an away game and Billy Kennedy is stepping down/being forced out at Ole Miss. This leaves his team unpredictable. Either they’ll play their hearts out for their coach or drop their shoulders and putter along till the season’s over.
Either way, this game is almost exactly like the Vandy game(with the hopeful Vandy outcome). Guard the 3 and get the ball to Gafford. Our bench is doing a lot better but we will get NO CALLS at Ole Miss so Hall, Thompson, Jones, and pick a forward, will need to step up their game not only defensively, but I have a feeling we’ll need their offense more than anything. We should win, but again, too much unpredictability for me to say with any guarantee.
Billy Kennedy is coach at Texas A&M, Andy Kennedy is coach at Ole Miss.
It’s winning time of the season to secure your spot in the NCAA Tournament, lose a game that you should win and the pressure is on big time the rest of the way.
Hogs had better take care of business at Ole Miss or they will be on the bracketology fence.
The hogs already have 2 bad losses to LSU and another Loss to Mooo U that is pretty bad as well. This is a game that you simply can’t afford to get beat if you want to play in March
From an RPI standpoint, the MSU game wasn’t that bad of a loss. Arkansas’ saving grace at the moment is they haven’t lost to any team with an RPI below 80(really good actually) and they’ve beaten teams with really good RPI’s(9 top 100 RPI wins). We have a great opportunity to push ourselves over the line the next 6 games.
Ole Miss always plays the Hawgs tough. Let’s assume they give it all they got. The hawgs need to take their best defensive effort on the road tonight. Play a bit more zone. Can’t count on the 3-pointer tonight, so driving the lane and getting the ball to Gafford will need to take priority. Hitting free throws will also be important tonight. On a final note, the usual suspects on this board are positively giddy at the thought of another road loss. Just more cases of Anderson Derangement Syndrome. Of course these negative nancies who preach dome and gloom at every opportunity profess to be the teams biggest fans. It’s a rather funny way of showing your support for the basketball team. As for me, while I was not a supporter of CBB, I never rooted for the football team to lose. Some of you need to realize that the grass is not always greener on the other side. I remember not too long ago when the basketball team couldn’t even sniff an NCAA Tournament Bid. Just think about that for all you guys still mourning Pelphrey getting fired.
General. I look for Moo U to end up out of the top 100 in RPI. That was a horrible way to get beat by them!
I do agree the 5 games following the Ole Miss game are resume builders. Beating Ole Miss is a must. 4 wins in those last 5 games would move the needle for the hogs.
Let’s home for a couple of road wins.
Nice road win, but the first half and the beginning of the second half, we played like hot garbage.
Beard saved our first half and Gafford/Hall dominated for the second half for us.
I’d like to say our defense was great and I think it was in the second half, but Ole Miss only shot 29% tonight and the first half, they had a lot of open looks. Basically, we got lucky. I’ll take it though, especially on the road.
Gafford was the man tonight. 6-7 from the field and 7-10 from the line. Don’t go to the NBA!!! Stay another year!!!
It was nice to see the bench production and 22 expanding his game. Jones just needs to keep shooting, we’ll need him the next 5 games.
Well the Hogs have done what they needed to do in the first 3 of the final eight conference games, now they will need to start putting two complete halves together and not dig themselves into a hole against better competition the rest of the way.
The push toward the NCAA Tournament begins this Saturday in terms of securing their spot and possibly improving seeding.
Wilson got hurt and is out the rest of the year. General, I agree with your assessment of tonight’s game. It was a needed win but not pretty. I see the games with Bama, Mizzu and Auburn as losses unless everyone gets hot.
Nice win with some great play from the freshman, whole team looked better at times last night. We just played 3 soft teams in a row which was huge for getting the freshman playing time and seeing them step up and gain confidence, you can watch them play and be encouraged for the future of the program. I would like to see CMA drop the hammer on Thomas & Cook on shooting the ball, you can’t talk about valuing posessions and allow them to shoot the ball other than deep in the paint,they need their role defined as rebounders and defenders. I appreciate their hard work and dedication to this team but it’s pertinent to know your strengths and weaknesses, they would do well to watch tape of Dennis Rodman and see the impact he had in games by knowing his role on the floor. Gafford has unlimited potential as a player but as good as he is I never saw him get a rebound or block a shot while he was in the bench, he has to get mentally stronger and stay out of foul trouble and then his numbers will go through the roof. We appear to be coming together as a team but as I said before we just played 3 soft teams and the next 2 weeks will tell us how we have or have not improved as the schedule toughens up steadily. We just won 3 much needed games in a row and you have to take your hat off to the coaching staff and players for persevering, if we had lost any of those 3 it would have had a devastating effect in the rankings and confidence of this team. WPS