First half Macon and Barford shooting 3 of 12 from the field much like their performance at Houston which was our only other true road game this season.
The Hogs can’t get the pace of play in their favor to this point and defensively we have allowed to many 2nd chance points.
Fortunately, we’re just down four and although the fouls have been lopsided in the Bulldogs favor are key players aren’t in serious foul trouble.
I would like to see more minutes for Bailey in the second half, his athleticism and ability to rebound was evident in his limited time in the 1st half and he made a couple of nice shots unlike in stark contrast to what Thomas and Clark did during their minutes. Darius Hall was also effective, I hope to see more of those two in the second half rather than Thomas and Clark.
Hope our coach can figure it out.
I’ve warned all season that winning in conference would be very difficult this season, especially on the road where the Hogs struggle to control tempo.
We had plenty of chances to put more distance between us and them in the 2nd half and just didn’t get it done in a game that we could’ve won on the road.
This was a game that we needed to win because we go into a red hot Auburn club on the weekend after they just beat Tennessee while hanging 94 points on them in their house.
Tempo won’t be an issue with Auburn, but being able to hang with them in their house certainly will.
We must win our home games or we could be looking at a conference record around .500.
I have said I believe we will be no better than 10-8 in conference and I thought this would be one of our road wins of few this season. We have to play UK, Florida, Missouri and Texas A&M at home which could all be difficult to win.
The Hogs have a good, but not a great team and hopefully they will get better and coach needs to realize who his best five players are and get them the most minutes from now on (More Bailey, less Thomas and Clark).
That was a nice day to be ranked in the top 25. Perhaps they will get back, but if they lose to Auburn Saturday they will be out of the rankings again next Monday.
Oh, don’t forget we have a good Oklahoma St. team to play at home later this season and that will be an NCAA Tourney committee type of game that we simply must win.
If the FT discrepancy is allowed to be that bad during a game, not many teams will win.
Wonder why road wins are so hard in the SEC? Because of things like this. Whistle blows on one end but won’t on other. 40 FTs to 12?? That is just stupid. Especially when the team with 12 FTs actually scores more points in the paint too. That is something you just never see!!! Ever! Except obviously in this conference.Smh
The team scoring more in the paint, 42 to 38 to be exact. During the course of the game only shoots 12 FTs to the other teams 40??? Like I swear to god, I’ve never seen that before in basketball, ever.
I’ve seen it before when one team shoots only jumpers all day, but if your outscoring your opponent in the paint 42-38 but somehow they shoot almost 30 more FTs is ridiculous!! Actually, it’s called “Cheating”! But nobody is gonna want to call it like it is I guess. But those 2 things don’t add up, Ever
I agree that the difference in fouls was a key issue in the outcome of the game.
However, when you look a our paint points they came off of clean dunks, clean layups and clean short jump shots. We had very few offensive rebounds which could lead to 2nd chance points and possible fouls down low.
Our style of play just simply doesn’t lend to several guys crashing the offensive boards and therefore we don’t put ourselves in a position to get fouled inside the pant that often.
We will probably get to the free throw line more than most of our opponents at home as well and if it’s in our favor anywhere near the percentage was against us on the road in this game then we should win all of our home games.
Having said that, we had a 9 point lead late in the 2nd half and had to many empty offensive processions.
Plus, when the game got tight in the last several of minutes we should have done some offense / defense substations and fouled their Freshman center Ado since he can’t shoot free throws, these are in game strategic decisions that can be made but weren’t recognized, if we had done that we would have probably won the game because we would have forced Howland to take Ado out of the game down the stretch.
I do hope that coach has seen enough now to realize that Bailey is our best option and will get the bulk of the minutes from now on. It’s so obvious that what he brings with his athleticism we simply don’t get on either end of the floor with Thomas or Clark.
Difficult to rebound when shots go up and no one to rebound close to the basket. Maybe should be taking a closer look at the 5 - 12 from the F.T. line; that was the difference in the game.
Lets be real, the refs handed MSU this game. Yes, we should have shot better than 5 out of 12 FT’s, BUT we outscored them in the paint, FG%, 3point%, and matched them in most other categories. The determining factor in this game that nobody can deny was the FT disparity and MSU still only won by 3. MSU was handed this game and Arkansas got hosed.
You made two very good points and I like you prefer to look at what could have been done to change the outcome. We had many opportunities to win the game but was not able to, on the road you have to take advantage of opportunities if you want to dance. Good post. WPS
i agree with the fact that FT disparity was the deciding factor in the game. in all honesty with that difference in FT’s, we really should be talking about a blow out loss. they made 19 more free throws, out rebounded us, and most other stats fairly close, even the fact neither team shot FT’s well. we outplayed them the entire second half until the last 3 minutes when they hit 2 three’s they hadnt been hitting all game. also, our best scorer had his worst game of year. there are no moral victories, but we lost by 3 to a team with one loss on their home floor with all these factors going against us. im not saying we’re going to win 3/4ths of our road games or even half, but the situation isnt dire. yes, we should of won on Tuesday night but we could be 0-2 like TN and TX A&M who both have lost home games already. i know some of us believe those 2 teams to be superior to the hogs, so its not just the hogs having trouble. my fear is one team will run away with SEC and then we have a glut of teams 10-8, 9-9 or 8-10 and then the committee will have to split hairs to decide. i know Florida has some nice wins but our win over Oklahoma should carry alot of weight come March. WPS
At end of day the FT discrepancy was 40-12. And State won by 3!!
… 40–12!! I don’t wanna hear about anything else. We shoot another 10 FTs in that game, which we should’ve, it’s still a 40-22 discrepancy but we win going away.
I agree wholeheartedly about the discrepancy. It was ridiculous. Yet, if we just hit a decent average of our free throws–3 more (8 of 12, 67%)–we’re tied. Four more (75%) and it’s a win.