Rhodes with Big Day Over UGA

The lead in Sunday's CL article about the game with UGA reads:

"Charles Rhodes made himself a promise. If he ever recorded his career high in points at Humphrey Coliseum, he would bend down and kiss the M-State logo at center court.

So before the Mississippi State forward exited Saturday's game with 1 minute, 45 seconds left, the sophomore from Jackson paused at mid-court for an impromptu celebration."

I'm somewhat surprised he wasn't given a technical. Hess must not have been working this one.

Rhodes scored 27 points Saturday afternoon, a career high. And he says he promised to kiss center court if he ever got his career high at the Hump. I personally hope to see him kiss center court a few times next year as well.

Rhodes, who is becoming quite quotable, added this gem as well, "I was letting everybody know I will be back next year," said Rhodes, laughing. "No NBA for me." So much for my tongue-in-cheek prediction last week.

So, is the NIT on the horizon for our Pups?

Well, they play Arkansas on the road on Wednesday and Alabama at the Hump this coming Saturday. I think they'll need to at least split these last two games or win a game in the SEC tournament to get an NIT invite. The NIT sucks, as a rule, but the more games these guys play together, the better.


(The picture is courtesy of Jim Lytle of The Associated Press.)

Clean Sweep

State started the season right with a sweep of visiting Marist.

Although the competition level could be questioned, Bulldog pitching looked exceptionally strong, holding Marist to a .199 BA for the series.

Dunn, Johnson, and Lalor picked up the early season wins.

a little history

Last season, for the first time in NCAA history, two collegiate baseball games had on-campus crowds of more than 10,000 on the same day. The two home teams, Mississippi State and Mississippi. It helped that those two baseball games coincided with spring football games at the respective institutions, but either way, it's an impressive stat.

This fact is being promoted with the SEC's "Pack the Parks - The Drive for 1.5" publicity campaign. Drawing 1,490,005 spectators in 2005, the SEC's baseball attendance goal this year is 1.5 million.

116th First Pitch

Brooks Dunn will throw the first pitch of the Bulldogs' 116th season tomorrow afternoon at 4:00 p.m. local time. The three game series against Marist marks the beginning of the 40th season at Dudy Noble Field.

Marist brings an experienced club to Starkville. They were recently picked to finish third in the MAAC by the conference's coaches. Marist won the 2005 MAAC Championship on its way to a 33-21 overall record and an appearance in their fifth NCAA Tournament since 1997.

I wish I could be out in Left Field.

Too little, too late.

"We wait to get down 20, get embarrassed, before we decide to start playing," Stansbury said.

Typical. The team has to learn how to play for 40 minutes (cliche, I know, but it's true). They played for 30 minutes at Auburn and lost by three.

I like the way this team fights. When they all learn consistency, they should be just fine.



(Photo is courtesy of Todd J. Van Emst of The Associated Press.)

speaking of being lazy...

And no, I'm not talking about the rumors of Croom's recruiting style (ba dum, ching!). I've been a sleep at the wheel this past month. Time to step it back up.

The big win over Mississippi on Saturday was nice and needed. Rhodes' qoute was classic.

"We beat the crap out of Ole Miss tonight." Nice.

Here's the new nightmare scenario...

Rhodes and Gordon go on a tear and lead State to four straight victories to end the regular season. Then they tear up the conference tourney on a surprise run only to lose in the final game. Then they win a few games in the NIT on big time performances. Nightmare, you say?

Then Rhodes and Gordon have a joint press conference to announce they are going pro. That would be typical State.

Seriously though, IF Rhodes and Gordon both stay for two more years, this team could be scary good in 2008.

In Baseball...the Dawgs have moved up two spots to #11 in the lastest Baseball America Poll and haven't played a game yet. Nice.

According to Ian's blog, "Polk also called the team his most experienced since he's returned to Starkville as coach. Then he said that the key to winning is who has the most experienced players and who stays away from injury." Expecations coach, expectations.

And in da foosball news, Melvin Smith is back. Which is nice, seeing as how he coached the greatest secondary in MSU history and was a coach on the greatest teams in MSU history.

This coaching shuffle has Beamer coaching running backs (with a lot of HC oversight I'm sure), Johnson coaching middle and weakside backers, with Jones coaching strong side backers and keeping control of the special teams. I always think Beamer should be coaching special teams, but maybe that's just too obvious.

Lazy blogging...

I'm on a weekly news cycle right now, which needs to improve, I know.

What's new this week:

It's official, the State-South Carolina game has been moved to Thursday, August 31 on ESPN. The game will open the college football season and if the opener is anything like last year's college kick-off at South Carolina, Starkville can expect the Game Day crew to be in town and can expect a concert by whoever is singing this year's ESPN College Football theme song. Should be a good party. And hopefully Spurrier will continue his losing streak at Scott Field.

Jamont Gordon earns SEC Freshman of the Week honors. What more can you say about his play? He's been outstanding. And speaking of outstanding, it's very nice to see Rhodes develop into one of the SEC's better post players mid-way through his second season.

Other interesting news...

The Jimmy Bass saga may be the straw that breaks Templeton's back. At least we hope it is. If history is any indicator of future outcomes, then Templeton will still be holding his post this time next year. I suppose our only hope is for the new president to ask for his resignation.

And you should check out Ian Rapoport's new blog on the Clarion-Ledger site. It's good reading.

Frustration

I haven't added anything to this blog in a week. Is it because I'm lazy that I don't bring myself here every day, no that's not it. It's because I'm depressed about the downward spiral that is the current state of State athletics.

Example 1. The basketball team is in the tank following their seventh straight loss. They're young, they'll get better, but right now they are tough to watch and even harder to write about. Gordon and Rhodes looked good last night. Everybody else...not so much.

Example 2. What in the hell happened during the past month of football recruiting? I'm not completely down on this class. There is some definite speed on the corners, which we needed, desperately. The running back class is solid, but thin without Ashley. Our SEC running back depth chart looks like this...Sophomore, Freshman, Freshman, ????. Not good. And why on earth didn't we recruit a quarterback? It takes QBs a good while to learn this offense; we needed one this year that could contribute in his 4th year, after his RS Freshman, Freshman and Sophomore years. But Croom is waiting until next year to recruit a big time QB, who will likely leave him at the altar, just like Perrilloux, Holland and Ashley.

On the bright side, there is some hope for the second half of the SEC season. The team has already played the heavy hitters from the East and Bama and Mississippi on the road. They could win at least half of their remaining games, if they remember how to win.

And the football team, well it's a long time until that first game. So, therefore it's a long time until the team suffers another loss.