Till after the game to comment, but these are my thoughts…
The refs were awful on “Scottie Pippen Appreciation Night.” Both for Jr. and Sr. Jr. pushed off almost every time he had the ball, and the refs actually let Sr. talk to them…really? Ridiculous!
As far as us, there is no logical reason for us to lose this game. It was a terrible loss. The crowd was good, yet we still lost…at home…to a bad team. Why…we don’t have a point guard. Why we don’t is because Muss missed on Lykes, and he is trying to turn Devo into something he is not, and will never be. I don’t know how to fix this this year. Umude and Toney played lights out tonite…with nothing to show for it.
Yeah, we missed free throws tonite, and the refs were awful, but this loss was on us. There is no reason in the world to ever see Vandy win at The Bud. This is just gonna be a long season for us. There is no way to sugarcoat it…J Will and Devo are really good complimentary players, but they are not stars. The stars are coming next year. I just hope Muss can keep us somewhat competitive until then, and not lose this season’s locker room. We are currently 6 games over .500 with a road game coming up. Quite honestly, I can’t believe this is where we are, after being a pre-season Top 15 team. I truly believe Muss needs to take a long look in the mirror…after all, this is HIS team.
I thought the refs had a really bad game. Thought there team was the worst team on the court.
Our team? These guys weren’t ready to play ….again, for the bazillionth time. It’s who they are now. Gotta be frustrating as a coach to deal with. Begging guys. He needs to be coaching not begging guys to be ready and try hard. Unreal culture to deal with.
Having said that it’s his job to figure out. Motivate. Nolan used to be politely slighted with being called a motivator instead of a coach. How’s that looking now?
We have a great coach but…
Of course Nolan was the total package.
Gotta figure it out. I liked our desperation energy and effort late in the game. That’s were we need to be all the time and from jump. and we have to make more threes. Did I mention we need to make more 3’s?
Only other thing is, we need some guys to wipe the hype from last year off and get back to the development of their craft in all areas including the team and live that out instead of living out the hype in their head.
Devo is bad and needs to get better. Same for Williams. Neither is a star and likely never will be. Role players. The team overall has some potential but it’ll likely be a dud season. Muss I heard (not confirmed) didn’t shake Stack’s hand after the game. Muss is kind of a weird guy and I’m OK with that. But lack of sportsmanship can’t be tolerated. He needs to get his S together. I have a feeling his shoulder is a real problem, maybe impacting his sleep. If he can’t coach this year, he needs to cede the job to someone like K. Smart. Help coming next year boys. Maybe these mercenaries will work out, but I doubt it.
Muss said earlier this season on his radio show that he thinks there shouldn’t be postgame handshakes in order to help prevent unnecessary spread of covid.
Some people are really reaching to criticize the coach.
Hey, it looks like he missed in some of the transfers. It happens. But I also know that sometimes it comes together later rather than sooner. Last year we opened conference play 1-4. And we know where we wound up. Not saying it’s going to happen that way again, but we also cannot say the season is lost. Gotta keep grinding and working.
Great take Jeremy! Devo is not playing anything like he did last year. I think this because Muss has tried to turn him into a point guard and like many have said, he’s not a point guard.
Devo is a slasher and a defender. For some reason this year he’s trying to be way more flashy. Numerous times this year he try’s to dribble behind his back in traffic. He’s tried behind the back and no look passed which most of the time have failed.
I really hate to be this guy but I have to ask/mention. Is the NIL deals causing players to try and do too much or do things they usually don’t do? If your a role player and not putting up numbers are your NIL deals going to continue?
Absolutely Muss thought Lykes was a point guard. Muss failed in that evaluation. So many good point guards were in the portal and we either couldn’t close the deal or we sold out for Lykes. Either way it’s a bad miss.
Vandy is a bad team! They have one decent player and that’s about it. No way we should have lost that game. I’m my opinion many players have checked out. JD looks like he’s having zero fun. Wade breathes the wrong way he gets pulled. Toney, even though he had a great game, doesn’t have the same look to himself that he did at the first of the year.
Lastly, burning through assistant coaches may be catching up with us. The players always lean on the assistants and having new faces every year can’t be good. Smart looked like he was pissed about Muss getting that tech. That’s two points that may have cost us the game.
The 2 AM workout/grind videos don’t seem to tell the whole story. Muss’ disgust at the end of the PC was telling. That didn’t look like a coach who thought the player just had an off night.
I have one question. Who, on this team, has consistently played good winning basketball? A number of players have had nice games, but none of them have showed up ready to play every night. Maybe no one on this squad is good enough to be a consistent player in the SEC. The returning players certainly have not played as well as they did.last year. Davis, Notae, and Williams know the system and all played big minutes last year in big time games. The players from the transfer portal have been wildly inconsistent. Lykes,Toney, and Umude have all played well at times, but after scoring 20, they may score 4 points the next game.
I’m not sure about the “not ready to play” part. When I checked the first half stats we were shooting over 75% from inside the arc, not so great from outside but not awful. Of course we didn’t keep that up anywhere near in the second half. And our free throw shooting was equally weak in both halves. Regardless at half time I thought we had played a pretty good game. Of course you need two halves usually to win…
The announcers and refs were enthralled with Scotty Pippin and by extension his son. He body bumped or pushed repeatedly. They only called him about one out five times that could have been called. Refs looked like they might ask for Scotty’s signature. We still should have won this game but I am beginning to fear in the end it may prove to be just one of many losses. I see about four games I count as LIKELY wins.
Exactly. … the lure of a top 5 recruiting class should be good enough to keep a couple assists staying for next year, but we will see… I wouldn’t hold my breath about it. And our signing class is all good enough to have other options if things go south real quick. Man it’s just sad to see a “sold out” bud Walton that’s half empty, and players and coaches that look like they’re not having any fun, and for first time I’ve ever seen refs that don’t looks like they have a bit of fear or intimidation in the bud just pure exasperation with our coach. Muss doesn’t get us any calls. Nolan used to get us calls. Muss just gets us embarrassed and admonished. And as good as hog fans are at getting on the refs to do us right, It seems like the home fans can’t even fully get behind his outbursts at the refs like dude pick your battles and have some principles. We are completely lacking in composure and discipline. I see selfish and immature play from top to bottom. It’s not as much about talent as everyone wants to say. These kids have been great at other schools. This team needs a come to Jesus moment. I don’t know what that looks like but I hope they figure it out. I don’t think next year is any guarantee.
After watching the game twice, stopping and rewinding and after reading the comments here are my thoughts.
The Hogs were evidently trying to play a match up zone but several times two players took the same player and left someone wide open on the opposite baseline.
Notae went to sleep on the out of bounds play before the half. A junior high player knows you don’t play over the top on a player 35 feet from the basket.
Where was our safety on that play? I would have put the 7’3 guy back to protect the rim. Then if you want to overplay the inbound pass you can.
Pippin posted up twice on the baseline and beat his man badly. We had a help defender in place to draw the charge but both times they tried to swipe at the ball and missed.
Davis looked awful tonight. Unforced turnovers and just looked like he had no confidence.
Notae shot poorly including free throws. Several times he just brought the ball down and shot it. There was no offense run 75 percent of the time.
As far as comments, I remember when people criticized Nolan saying he couldn’t coach and that his team was unmotivated. He barely got through the first couple of years and then at the end he just sat on the bench like a spectator. It’s natural to remember the “great Nolan” with the good teams. But all of his teams were not good. And when they were not good, they looked real bad trying to play the full court in your face 40 minutes of hell.
Why is it when the Hogs lose, some always say the other team is not good. I thought Vandy looked good to me. Not elite but at least a middle of the pack sec team. They are going to beat some people.
Last but not least, I got tired of hearing them talk about Pippen. He will be lucky to even make a NBA team but you would have thought he was Jordan.
You make some good points, but some clarification is needed. Coach Richardson’s teams were among the best in the country, year after year, once he got rid of the scrubs he inherited from Sutton. We had, I think, the 3rd best winning % in the 90’s. His teams that didn’t do as well were decimated from the NCAA’s witch hunt into our program… which turned up absolutely nothing! Eventually they even had to let Sunday Adebayo transfer back to Arkansas…a team he never wanted to leave in the first place. We had the #1 recruiting class in the country in 96, until the NCAA dismantled the class for BS reasons that were later disproved. I get why Coach Richardson was so bitter for so many years…the NCAA probably cost him at least 2 nattys…for no good reason.
One more thing…I definitely don’t want to absolve Muss acting like a petulant child…it’s a terrible look, but the guy wants to do 1 thing…WIN! I will posit that most of this roster would not have survived Cleveland Hill or most any other thing that Coach Richardson expected of his players. It’s definitely a different era, and the word that keeps coming to my mind is…soft.