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Message: [QUOTE="bballnut90, post: 3744242, member: 2117"] Mississippi State at 5 definitely seems low, although all of the top 5 teams look quite solid on paper. Mississippi State I think is somewhat of an enigma with McCray coaching. Her teams statistically have been pretty lousy offensively, especially compared to Vic who was an underrated offensive coach and his teams played some excellent basketball. The roster has a lot of players who've shown glimpses of excellent play, but will that develop into Mississippi State being a top 5 team again? The offense should revolve around Rickea Jackson who appears to have all the tools to be a very good go to player. I think she'll need to be more aggressive offensively this year and take on more of a go to role, but will she be ready for that? She was a big time player as a freshman but often seemed content deferring to others. My guess is she does flourish in a system likely centered around her. Jessika Carter had a huge jump in production and play, but she wasn't a big factor against better teams. Big question mark IMO, especially against teams in the top 10. It's one thing to score at will against mediocre teams as a 6-5 post, but she'll need to have better showings against the stronger teams. On the flip side of that, you have players like Mingo-Young and Matharu who were studs against very good teams (both looked sensational vs South Carolina) but largely sat on the bench most of the year. Can they be consistently good players or were those sort of random flashes of great play? Matharu in particular is intriguing, but I don't know how consistent she'll be in a larger role. On top of that there is Myah Taylor who became a very good decision maker but wasn't an offensive threat, and you have a big time transfer in Sidney Cooks coming in who was a former top 5 recruit, but she didn't live up to that billing at Michigan State. Lots of questions marks and a ton of potential. If players all make that step forward in their game, Mississippi State could be a really, really good team. I think a lot of pieces have to fall into place in order for Mississippi State to take that leap to become a Final Four threat this year. If Vic was coaching, I think he'd get them there, but I'm just not sold on McCray until I see how they play under her. Also worth noting, more often than not, it's teams who have a lot of experience or a couple of proven returning go to players that are capable to take their team to a Final Four opposed to a team that has a lot of talent but also a lot of question marks. [/QUOTE]

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